Marine Sensor Commercialisation Drives New Industry
A. K. R. Morris, M. C. Mowlem; National Oceanography Centre
[email protected], [email protected]
Opportunity
The NOC in collaboration with the University of Southampton have developed capable, autonomous and cost effective sensors for the marine environment.
The sensors were developed for open ocean science (high accuracy, high resolution) and for small low-cost platforms (low resources and autonomous
running) meaning they are not only extremely attractive for environmental monitoring but also for industrial applications. In total there is a potential £4 Bn
market.
Part of the NOC mission is to turn knowledge and technology innovations into applications for government, business and the public. To deliver the biggest
impact for the UK commercialisation with partners in the UK, EU and beyond has been pursued. This has in turn driven new industry and promoted the
delivery of ever more capable, user friendly and autonomous in-situ systems. These systems are now being made available to fields outside marine science;
enabling the collection of more and better vital data that informs investigations and policy.
Family of Low Cost Sensors
NOC sensors utilise microfluidic, electronic and electrochemical technology. This enables a family of low cost sensors that can target complex chemical
parameters such as nutrients, trace metals, pH, dissolved oxygen and salinity whilst also running autonomously with low resource requirements.
B
C
D
E
14 mm
A
A. The key technology of the NOC’s Lab on Chip
(LOC) devices. Precision fabricated microfluidic
chips with pumps and electronics in one package.
B. The NOC’s Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health X-Prize team with their sensor (including
batteries and pressure housing). The LOC pH technology was developed from a bench top
system to a fully autonomous and in-situ sensor within six months.
C. NOC staff deploying two LOC systems to continuously monitor nutrient
levels within the UK. The NOC has similar devices remotely running at
several sites, providing high temporal resolution data.
D. The central technology of the NOC’s conductivity, temperature and
dissolved oxygen (CTDO) sensors. The chip is fabricated by NOC partners
the University of Southampton and has attracted high commercial interest.
E. The CTDO sensors have been deployed at sea and run alongside
the industries standard but much larger and power consuming
equivalents.
Pursuing commercialisation has meant new design philosophies such as shared architecture, modular design and ease of use have been included from the start
of any new project. The resulting sensors are therefore attractive to industrial partners, enabling the work at the NOC to reach a large audience.
To further supplement the opportunities that are now becoming ever more common key business innovations are being pursued to deliver increased benefit to
the UK and support new industry growth.
Here the NERC research
ship RMS Discovery is
deploying an autonomous
and robotic NOC glider,
which in turn houses two
NOC nitrate sensors during
a trials cruise in 2014.
F
F. NOC glider during
deployment.
G. Pair of NOC LOC nitrate
sensors being packaged
into payload of glider.
G
Business Innovations
1. Development of a spinout company for the manufacture of the most critical and
technologically complex components of the NOC sensors.
2. Licensing the NOC technology to existing companies with a footprint within the UK or EU.
3. Promoting inward investment to the UK through working with overseas companies and
developing links to our spinout.
An example of the application of these innovations is through the Aquawarn project.
Case Study:
The NOC is an academic member of a consortium, including several small to medium enterprises
(SMEs) across the UK and EU, see right. Aquawarn is funded by the European Union in the Seventh
Framework Programme (FP7) for the benefit of SME’s.
Aquawarn
Consortium
T. E. Laboratories
SME partner
Williams Industrial
Services Ltd.
SME partner
The NOC is providing expert contributions through optimisation of reagent based assays and its
experience of delivering autonomous sensing system design along with their integration into vehicles
and other platforms.
Kalite Sistem Group
SME partner
RT Environment Srl
SME partner
The result of Aquawarn will be a device that provides real-time monitoring that reduces the detection
period for pollution incidents whilst still remaining economically viable for widespread use. The project
relies heavily on Lab on Chip technology provided by the NOC, which for the final product will be made
available through license agreement.
Dublin City University
Academic partner
National Environment
Research Council,
(via NOC)
Academic partner