Hi-tech marine observing technologies

The challenge

Collecting information from the vast marine environment

CSIRO's marine scientists use an impressive array of sensitive and innovative equipment, deployed in some of the world's most hostile environments, to deliver high-quality ocean data.

The information is used to understand and monitor ocean currents and habitats, to determine the ocean's role in climate, and even follow the journeys of fish and sharks in order to provide information for the sustainable management of fish stocks.

Our response

Unique technology and engineering solutions

CSIRO has a long history of developing practical solutions to the unique problems associated with data gathering at or in the sea, with much of the technology used by scientists developed or refined in-house.

These include:

• towed deep-water devices that relay quantitative digital video of the seafloor in real time
• self-contained acoustic devices which are deployed from fishing boats to differentiate between fish species for stock assessments
• Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to survey the depths like small robotic submarines
• winged gliders which take the temperature of the sea, along with other information, providing valuable information on our oceans' health and their role in determining climate.

Specifically, CSIRO has developed and/or uses:

• Towed acoustic body systems
• Vertical drop acoustic system
• Towed camera systems
• Towed undulating vehicle
• Ocean glider
• Oceanographic moorings
• ARGO floats
• Swath mapping
• Expendable Bathythermographs (XBTs)
• Devil Expendable Bathythermographs (XBT) acquisition system
• Fish and mammal tag technology
• Calibrations laboratory
• Starbug Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)
• Benthic respiration remote deployed laboratories.