Project Deliverable D50 Report on Best Practices Workshop - Ifremer

References:
[1] Duane R. Edgington, Daniel Davis. “Sensors: Ocean Observing System Instrument
Network Infrastructure”. A <strong>Report</strong> of the NSF/ORION Workshop. 13-15, 2004. MBARI.
4.4.2.3 Debriefing
A practical approach was chosen to map structural elements of the ocean observatory
acquisition chain with currently available standards that solve the interoperability problem in
smart sensing. To the best of the participants knowledge, such approach was lacking and is a
necessary step in order to harmonise future developments and foster the use of such standards
in ESONET and other ocean observatory initiatives. Second, this effort covers from the
physical layer to data presentation layer, when most approaches in interoperability generally
only focus on one or few elements of that chain. Finally, the obtained consensus is more than
satisfactory as representatives from different initiatives as well as different interests (academic
and commercial) were present.
One of the practical follow-ups will consist in the OBSEA test within ESONET NoE, where
the above concepts will be tested in real-time on a cabled infrastructure.
4.4.3 Underwater intervention and 20 year plus materiel choice
4.4.3.1 Introductory texts
Underwater intervention
They are no standards or recommended practises covering globally the subject of ROV
intervention, apart form the NORSOK "U-102 Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) services".
Most of the know-how is retained by each individual operator, and is hardly exchanged within
the industry, for obvious reasons of commercial competition.
However, it would be advisable for the scientific community for which commercial
competition is a far less present parameter, to build up a database related to ROV
intervention, collecting data on vehicles performances, tooling and sensors usage feed-back,
break down statistics, operational hazards, crew manning, maintenance tricks, etc., which
could lately be the base for a general recommended practise on underwater diverless
intervention. The work should also cover ultimately the AUV operations, for which the
underwater community in general, still misses a real feedback.
The existing intervention equipment (Submarines, ROV and AUV, hybrid vehicles) available
within the scientific community will govern the early days of intervention procedures on
underwater observatories (methodology and operational procedures are largely dependant on
the intervention equipment specifications), it will be beneficial in the long term to work out
the specifications of standard vehicles, which will offer both performances and versatility, and
would allow the various laboratories to exchange hardware, operators and know how.
Objectives:
The objective of the working group would be to provide the scientific users with proper
guidelines on what equipment to use for each type of missions, and recommended practices to
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