Program Summary
DARPA's Oceans of Things program seeks to enable persistent maritime situational awareness over large ocean areas by deploying thousands of small, low-cost floats that form a distributed sensor network. Each smart float contains a suite of commercially available sensors to collect environmental data-such as sea surface temperature, sea state, and location - as well as activity data about commercial vessels, aircraft, and even maritime mammals moving through the area. The floats transmit data periodically via satellite to a cloud network for storage and real-time analysis.
The technical challenge for Ocean of Things lies in two key areas: float development and data analytics.
Under float development, performers are tasked to design an intelligent float to house a passive sensor suite that can survive in harsh maritime environments. Each float processes information on the edge before reporting it, persisting for up to one year before safely scuttling itself in the deep ocean. The floats are required to be made of environmentally safe materials, pose no danger to vessels, and comply with all federal laws, regulations, and executive orders related to protection of marine life.
The data analytics portion of the Ocean of Things program requires performers to develop cloud-based software and advanced analytic techniques to process the floats' reported data. This effort includes dynamic display of float locations, health, and mission performance; processing of environmental data for oceanographic and meteorological models; developing algorithms to automatically detect, track, and identify nearby vessels; and identification of new indicators of maritime activity.
For the latest on Ocean of Things including float data made available for the wider oceanographic research community, visit oceanofthings.darpa.mil.