A Smart Sensor Web for Ocean Observation: Fixed and Mobile Platforms, Integrated Acoustics, Satellites and Predictive Modeling

In many areas of Earth science, including climate change research and operational oceanography, there is a need for near real-time integration of data from heterogeneous and spatially distributed sensors, in particular in-situ and space-based sensors. The data integration, as provided by a smart sensor web, enables numerous improvements, namely, adaptive sampling for more efficient use of expensive space-based and in situ sensing assets, higher fidelity information gathering from data sources through integration of complementary data sets, and improved sensor calibration. The ocean-observing smart sensor web presented herein is composed of both mobile and fixed underwater in-situ ocean sensing assets and Earth Observing System satellite sensors providing larger-scale sensing.