PMEL Argo Float Laboratory: Instrument Management and Testing Donald Denbo Willa Zhu Greg Johnson Elizabeth Steffen Presented by: Eugene Burger

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD2 Outline Argo Program Overview Testing procedures Software Design Examples

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD3 Argo Program Overview Global program to observe: Changing state of the upper ocean. Patterns of ocean climate variability. Heat & freshwater storage and transport. Array of 3,000 floats. Presently 2060 floats active % complete. Basic measurements of temperature and salinity in upper 2000m. International in scope. Data freely available.

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD4 Float Operation

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD5 Float Testing Testing needs to cover basic operations of the float. Automate testing procedures Speed up operations Record all test data Guarantee all steps are completed Manage float metadata and administrative information.

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD6 Tests Short Workout First check that transmitter is functioning Get CTD information Move piston in and out 4 counts Get voltage, current, and vacuum Air Bladder Pump air bladder Hold for ~16 hours Verify bladder pressure hasn’t dropped beyond specs.

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD7 Tests (cont) Dock Test (before) Save mission parameters (up, down, ascend time, and transmission rep rate) Change mission parameters to test values. Dock Test (after) Move piston back to storage position Restore mission parameters Download from service ARGOS transmissions. Compute transmission statistics

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD8 Tests (cont) Salinity Get CTD serial number and manufacturer from float. Get 50 temperature/salinity samples from reference head and test float. Compute statistics (in Matlab). Display results. Final Check Repeat short workout Option to change mission parameters

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD9 Tests (cont) Shipboard Check Check voltage, current and vacuum Check mission parameters Test transmitter Check CTD serial number Move piston in/out 4 counts Check voltage, current and vacuum

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD10 System Design MySQL FloatLab Matlab PostgreSQL ARGOS

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD11 Implementation Developed using Java version MySQL 4.1.x used for managing test and meta data. Apache telnet library used to communicate with ARGOS Serial I/O library & serial->USB converter purchased from SerialIO. Matlab version 7 used with Salinity tests.

NOAATech 2006, Silver Spring, MD20 Summary Automated float testing Increases reliability Reduces workload Improves test quality