Transforming ocean data for a new generation of sensors

As autonomous ocean observing develops, increasingly sophisticated sensors are generating more diverse and complex environmental measurements. While this creates new opportunities for science, it also presents a challenge: the digital systems used to process, quality control, standardise and share ocean data need to evolve alongside the technology collecting it.

Accelerating Adoption of Sensor Innovation (AASI)

The British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) is developing its digital infrastructure to support new sensor technologies developed through the AASI programme - a £4m proof of concept funded by the UKRI Infrastructure Fund. By adapting its end-to-end data infrastructure, BODC is helping new sensors move more quickly from development into research, with their data made available in consistent, usable forms.

This includes improvements to processing pipelines and metadata systems that can handle diverse sensor outputs and transform them into standardised, quality-controlled datasets. A key development is the enhancement of BODC's Platform Agnostic Metadata System (PAMS), which can dynamically map sensor outputs to standardised scientific parameters.

Linking datasets to internationally recognised vocabularies through the NERC Vocabulary Server further strengthens interoperability and machine-readability, making increasingly complex ocean observations easier to discover, combine and reuse.

Innovation in ocean science is not just about developing new vehicles and sensors, it’s also about building the digital infrastructure needed to support them. We’re now seeing a new generation of autonomous platforms collecting increasingly sophisticated environmental measurements. That creates huge opportunities for ocean science, but also challenges for data management. What we’re demonstrating is that BODC can rapidly adapt its end-to-end systems to support these new technologies, making sure the data remains accessible, interoperable and usable in near real-time.

Jak Jones, British Oceanographic Data Centre

Adapting systems for emerging technologies

BODC is enabling greater flexibility to incorporate new sensor technologies as autonomous oceanography evolves, reducing barriers to bringing innovative instruments into research and generating new sources of environmental evidence. 

Making data work across systems

Standardised parameters, metadata and internationally recognised vocabularies help ensure that data from different sensors and platforms can be understood, connected and reused. This increases the value of individual datasets and strengthens the evidence available for research and environmental monitoring.

Getting data to researchers faster

Improved processing and quality-control workflows are helping move data from autonomous platforms to researchers more efficiently. Near-real-time access can support faster analysis and monitoring, helping scientists identify and respond to environmental changes while deployments are still underway.

Building a connected digital ecosystem

AASI is supporting tools and infrastructure that connect different stages of the data journey. New applications will give scientists a single place to track deployments, access datasets and support real-time decision-making, while automated processing and improved provenance information make datasets easier to understand and use.

The result is a more flexible digital system that can keep pace with new ways of observing the ocean. By making new measurements easier to process, understand and access, BODC is helping turn advances in ocean sensing into better information about how our oceans are changing. This can support better research and decisions on climate change, biodiversity, coastal resilience and ocean health, helping society understand and respond to changes that affect the marine environment and the people and economies that depend on it.