data files, and we fulfill requests from scientists The SSV Oliver Hazard Perry is a fairly new
for the data. ship – it has only been sailing for a year and
Another large group that we work with is
UNOLS (University-National Oceanographic
Laboratory System). UNOLS is the fleet of ships
that are operated by universities across the
country – about 20 altogether. These include
the URI ship R/V Endeavor, several out of the
WHOI, and others throughout the country.
Unlike Nautilus and Okeanos Explorer, which
half – and it has just received its open ocean
certification. The SSV Oliver Hazard is going to
embark on an expedition called The Northwest
Passage Project (NPP), which will explore the
changing Arctic environment. The NPP is a
collaborative effort between URI, the ISC, the
film company David Clark, Inc., and several
other collaborators.
have full-time telepresence, these ships don’t, Starting in August, 2017, two cohorts of 18
so they contract with the ISC to provide that students, including high school, undergrad and
as a service. We did five or six projects with grad students, will sail on the SSV Oliver Hazard
UNOLS ships last year, and will likely do at Perry to the Arctic and the Northwest passage
least that many again this year, because to conduct research and make a documentary
telepresence is becoming more mainstream in about climate change. The students will receive
oceanography. Telepresence enables professors science instruction as the ship is underway,
to teach classes from a ship, or allow those who gain navigation and sailing skills and work
can’t dedicate a month to go out on a research alongside ocean scientists as they conduct
cruise to participate in the activities remotely. Arctic research.
As the ships’ telepresence partner, we take in In addition to video streams, we enable audio all the feeds that are broadcast from each. For and data streams as well. We support a rack example, on the Okeanos Explorer, there are of servers that are accessible to the ship, and The trend is everything is going online now, and The ISC will play an important role in this
multiple cameras mounted around the ship and these servers synchronize data with computer the oceanographic community is following that expedition by providing telepresence
on the remotely operated vehicles during dive systems onboard approximately every 15 trend. capabilities. We are going to be installing a
operations, and we capture the video and data minutes to send files for scientists to work on. feeds that are broadcast from these cameras. Sometimes the ships send very large files to Our job is to make sure that these feeds are of shore, like sonar mapping data, which can be the highest possible quality, so we work closely processed by scientists ashore and sent back to with the ship’s engineers to ensure that high the ship to help prepare for the next day’s dive.
quality. We host the feeds on our private
servers for participating scientists to access
at a lower latency and higher quality. This is
important for the scientists who join these
feeds to “participate” in the oceanographic
projects. We also pass those streams along
to the commodity Internet – for example, to
YouTube – for public consumption.
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CURRENT SPRING 2017
The E/V Nautilus uses telepresence in similar
new satellite tracking antenna on the ship
Last fall, URI’s Graduate School of
Oceanography received a $2.9 million grant
for an Arctic expedition. What does this
expedition entail and what are you hoping
to learn from it? Also, who, if any, are the
partners that you will be working with?
way in support of science, but a large part of We are very excited to be working on this
E/V Nautilus’ telepresence effort is focused on project with another Rhode Island entity, the
education and outreach, which we support with Oliver Hazard Perry tall ship, which is a sailing
our live production capabilities. We also ar- school vessel (SSV). This is first time the ISC is
chive the feeds they collect here at URI, going to have a telepresence on a sailing school
because the Ocean Exploration Trust is vessel.
headquartered here. We store the ship’s video
in the spring, and will then be able to track
the satellite and establish ship-to-shore
connections. Thanks to us, these students will
be able to contribute to daily live broadcasts
from the Arctic that will stream from the ship
via satellite to the ISC, and we will then in turn
send the live broadcasts to the Smithsonian
Institution National Museum of Natural His-
tory, the Exploratorium in San Francisco and
the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward, where
audiences will be able to interact in real time
with the scientists and students aboard the
Stronger Together
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