NIOZ EN > Services > Marine Technology > Electronics
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Marine Technology Elektronics (MTE)

Now more than ever in over 125 years of NIOZ history does electronics assume a greater role in research equipment. Over 35 years ago a separate electronics department was established, from which the present MTE has now grown.

The MTE department offers general support with activities falling into roughly three parts:

Maintenance of existing equipment

Electronic equipment of the Marine Research Facility (MRF) pool is maintained by MTE. The bulk of this consists of acoustic releases, radio beacons, and motors for sediment traps. MTE is responsible for maintaining sufficient stock of such seagoing equipment, spare parts and consumables. A storeroom is managed specifically for this purpose.

Additional items are newly built and maintained – such as battery packs (in glass spheres), video systems, underwater cabling connections, copper wire and optical fiber.

MTE is often the first point of contact for researchers seeking technical advice, support and repair services for a wide variety of equipment throughout the institute.

MTE can remedy limited defects in consultation with the user of pre-purchased laboratory equipment when possible, but for more in-depth issues a referral back to the original manufacturer is then advised. Specialized laboratory equipment is often developed over many decades and involves careful calibration procedures for producing validated results. Technicians from the equipment supplier are therefore the best specialists in these areas.

Actively support research
A technician from MTE will be present on almost all cruises aboard the Pelagia and frequently also on ships from other nations. Shipboard duties include operating the CTD equipment, seismic recording, acoustic releases, radio beacons, and video surveying upon request.

However the greatest value of having an electronics engineer onboard is in the event of technical failure. Equipment used at sea is often going to great depths and can easily fail in such a hostile environment. Many years of experience at sea coupled with excellent improvisational skills mean that to date almost all equipment failures could be resolved and operations continued. Often a seagoing expedition is also a testing ground for the further development and perfection of equipment designs which involves making a number of modifications while onboard.
New builds and support
The world of electronics continues to evolve at a breakneck speed and leading edge research regularly asks for new and yet-to-be invented research tools. Parts are forever smaller, more complex and intelligent, and have increasingly lower energy requirements. This opens doors to new studies that were impossible just a short time before. Research is initiated and dictated by new technical features such as high resolution sensors for various parameters, like those used in a bird tracking system, or energy efficient and extremely accurate temperature loggers.

Often new equipment does not go beyond a first version and will therefore remains at a prototype stage. However several MTE projects have run much longer and perfected products which have allowed NIOZ to become a world leader.
 
When developing a new project the department works closely with researchers to deliver a solution that answers their questions. This is almost always done in close co-operation with the instrumentation and mechanical departments within NIOZ. Electronics without an enclosure is worthless and sensors are always in some way connected with the outer world. The outer world is often harsh - at 6000 meter water depth the pressure is equivalent to a weight of 600 pounds per square inch.

Equipment that is placed in shallow sea water is unrecognizable after just a few weeks, coming back covered with algae and sharp barnacles encrusted everywhere, especially in the least desirable of places. This is in addition to exposure to sun, salt water, and all manner of weathers.
The demands of these environments are overcome by the extensive collective experience of the Marine Technology (MTEC) departments.

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Continued shift to autonomous operating systems

In almost all newly developed electronic equipment from the NIOZ one can find microcontrollers, which are small autonomously operating computers. It is impossible for MTE to manage the hundreds of micro-controllers that exist, and fortunately this is not necessary. After reviewing several families of microcontrollers the MSP430 (TI) family has become the most widely used workhorse for many applications. This family has proven itself in reliability, accuracy and low energy consumption. For this family MTE maintains a library of development blocks, which in turn allows rapid deployment of new applications.

In addition MTE has experience and knowledge of specific applications on different processor platforms. For each new project the best choices are made based on technical specifications, available development tools, and the ease of achieving the desired goals. For example the next generation of our multifunction data loggers will likely use a well balanced combination of MSP and ARM processors.

In modern electronics development roughly half the time is spent writing software. Our embedded software is mainly written in C. For more generic applications or when complex interfacing and control is required then Visual or LabVIEW is used. This shift from classical electronics without built-in intelligence, to modern electronics having intelligence, also requires a shift in the capabilities and skills of the employees. Recently the team has been expanded with a second embedded software engineer. The electronics team now consists of experienced engineers with a mix of development skills from which a full in house development process can be delivered.


Software Tools
On both Windows and Linux development machines MTE works with:

  • Ulticap / Ultiboard
  • Altium
  • IAR IDE / compilers
  • Intusoft Spice
  • LabVIEW