Communication Operations at THEMO: the Texas A&M - University of Haifa - Eastern Mediterranean Observatory

We introduce the communication operations of THEMO: the new Texas A % M - University of Haifa - Eastern Mediterranean Marine Observatory. THEMO includes moored sensors, surface sensors, and secondary moorings. In all cases, the data from the sensors is transferred in near real-time to a shore station where it is freely shared with the community. Variety of communication aids are used. These include underwater acoustic communications to connect the sensors onboard the secondary moorings with THEMO’s surface platform, underwater inductive communication to connect the moored submerged sensors to the buoy’s controller, and radio communication connecting the mooring to the shore station. After deployment of almost a year, our results show that the communication performance are reliable, and the data flows in all weather conditions. In this paper, we describe the mooring’s communication applications, and share the details of the different communication components.