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Oceans/
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Underwater noiseThe sea’s soundscape, measured.
Shipping, piling and seismic surveys fill the sea with sound that whales, dolphins and fish depend on hearing through. Hydrophone moorings measure that sound to agreed metrics, so regulators track the trend, builders show they kept piling within limits and marine life is protected.
Plan a deploymentHow it worksStation Builder- Industry
- Oceans
- Measurements
- 4
- Sources cited
- 3
Oceans · Underwater noise
A sea full of sound
Shipping, piling and seismic surveys fill the sea with sound. Whales, dolphins and fish depend on hearing to feed, navigate and find each other, and noise masks it. Underwater noise is now a measure of good environmental status, and offshore construction must keep piling within limits.
What is measured
Calibrated hydrophones
Calibrated hydrophones on moorings record the sea’s sound continuously, from ship noise in low frequency bands to the impulses of piling and the calls of marine mammals. Each hydrophone is calibrated before deployment and again on recovery, so levels are comparable across sites.
- Instruments
- Calibrated hydrophones · Recorders · Surface buoys
The base node
Levels and detections at sea
The node computes band levels and sound exposure to the agreed metrics, detects marine mammal calls and piling strikes, and sends compact summaries. The recorder keeps the full audio for recovery, so every summary can be checked against what was heard.
Radio and links
Summaries to shore
Moorings near shore send band levels and detections over cellular; offshore moorings send them through a satellite terminal. Summaries reach regulators’ regional systems and construction control rooms, while full recordings come home on recovery. When one path fails, the other carries the data.
- Links
- Public cellular · Satellite
How it works
From a whale call to a piling pause
During offshore piling, a mooring detects porpoise clicks close to the site. The node alerts the control room with the detection and the current sound exposure. Piling pauses under the permit’s conditions until the animals move away, and the record shows every decision.
From order to operation · Order
Scope the duty
The scope reads the regulator’s monitoring duties or the construction permit’s noise conditions, shipping and species, and existing moorings. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the mooring plan, metrics, detection models and a price per mooring and per year. The scope is agreed before any site work begins.
Plan a deploymentFrom order to operation · Survey
Survey positions
Crews survey positions for depth, seabed, distance from shipping lanes and construction, trawling activity and coverage for reports. Positions follow the monitoring guidance so results compare across the region. Findings shape the kit for each site before anything is built.
From order to operation · Permits
Maritime consent
Moorings are approved by the maritime authority, marked to the rules for their area and published in notices to mariners. Fishing communities are told of positions to avoid trawl losses. Every approval is kept with the mooring record. No crew goes to site before its approvals are in place.
From order to operation · Build
Calibrate hydrophones
Hydrophones and recorders are calibrated across the frequency bands, nodes configured with the metrics and detection models and enrolled with their identities, and the system is tested end to end before shipping. Nothing ships until the whole kit has passed its tests together.
Open the Station BuilderFrom order to operation · Install
Deploy moorings
Crews deploy each mooring from a vessel, with the hydrophone at its design depth and the surface buoy above, record positions and depths, and watch the first reports arrive before leaving. Crews follow the site safety plan throughout the work.
From order to operation · Commission
Commission the levels
Each node proves its identity. Band levels are checked against a reference hydrophone or known sources, detections against expert review, and reports against the recorder’s full audio. The mooring enters service when checks pass. Acceptance is recorded with the owner before handover.
From order to operation · Operate
Track the soundscape
Regulators see band levels and their trend; construction teams see sound exposure during piling and stop when limits or marine mammals require; researchers receive detections and recordings. Every alert and action is kept on the record. Reports for owners and funders come from the same record.
From order to operation · Maintain
Recover, recalibrate, redeploy
Moorings are recovered on schedule, recordings retrieved, hydrophones recalibrated and moorings redeployed. Software updates roll out remotely, and every change and calibration is kept with the mooring record. Maintenance history stays with each site for its whole life. Spares and procedures travel with the crews.
Book field servicesData products
For regulators and builders
Marine regulators receive noise band levels and trends; offshore construction teams receive piling sound exposure; researchers and observers receive marine mammal detections; scientists receive calibrated recordings, each tied to mooring, depth and time. Every product can be traced back to its readings.
See the data productsEvidence
Agreed metrics, calibrated
Monitoring follows the marine strategy directive’s noise descriptor and its monitoring guidance, terms follow the international underwater acoustics standard, and hydrophones are calibrated before and after deployment. Every level keeps its calibration and every detection its review. The record is kept for as long as the duty lasts.
- Drawn against
- Directive 2008/56/EC · Monitoring Guidance for Underwater Noise in European Seas · ISO 18405
What you get
Ocean and coastal observing
Moored buoys, profiling floats, tide and wave gauges, coastal radar and AIS reception with quality-controlled feeds. Delivered as managed service and data licence, for ports, coastal agencies, offshore energy, fisheries. Scale: Coastline to basin. Service levels are written as numbers you can measure on your own dashboard.
Talk to salesNext step
Plan underwater noise with us
Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for underwater noise. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.
Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio
01The place and its hazards
Where it runs, and what can go wrong.
Operating contextUnderwater noise is a descriptor of good environmental status in the marine strategy framework directive, with monitoring guidance that sets frequency bands and metrics; underwater acoustic terms are standardised internationally. Offshore construction permits often require noise limits during piling and the presence of marine mammals to be checked.
Hazards
- Shipping noise masking whale and dolphin calls
- Impulsive piling noise during offshore construction
- Moorings lost to trawling
- Hydrophones fouled or flooded
- Huge recordings no one can analyse
02What must be measured
What, where, how often, and under which rules.
Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.
| Measurement | Where | Cadence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ambient noise in standard bands | Hydrophones on moorings | Continuous, band levels each minute | 12 |
| Impulsive sound exposure | Hydrophones near construction sites | Continuous during piling | 23 |
| Marine mammal detections | Hydrophones with detection models | Continuous | 1 |
| Hydrophone calibration | Each hydrophone and recorder | Before deployment and on recovery | 32 |
03The observation stack
From one base unit to a network.
The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.
- 01
Base unit
A mooring: a calibrated hydrophone and recorder with a surface buoy and node.
Build a station → - 02
Site
A site: moorings around a shipping lane, a port or a construction site, reporting to shore.
Plan a site → - 03
Fleet
A regional network run to the agreed bands and metrics.
Managed offers → - 04
Network
Regulators and researchers share noise levels and detections through regional data systems.
The open protocol →
- 01Acoustic sensor
- 02Moored buoy
- 03Micro node (Nano)
- 043GPP NTN terminal
- 05Cellular modem/router
- 06Solar array
Radio and links
Public cellular
Moorings near shore report band levels and detections over cellular.
Radio and links
Satellite
Offshore moorings report through a satellite terminal.
Edge computeThe node computes band levels and sound exposure, detects marine mammal calls and piling strikes, and sends compact summaries while the recorder keeps the full audio for recovery.
PowerThe surface buoy carries solar panels and batteries; the hydrophone recorder has its own battery for the deployment.
04How it works
From the instrument to the product.
One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.
Underwater noise: data path
– of 06
01 Instruments Measurement with sensor identity andcalibration 02 Node – Wrap in an observation envelope with timequality– Measure quality and uncertainty, attachquality flags– Buffer locally (store-and-forward when thelink drops) 03 Backhaul Commit with transactional outbox andpublish, delivered at least once 04 Site Consumer inbox deduplicates and applieseach record once into governed data 05 Data store Governed product through API, map orexport, correction-aware 06 Products netCDF-CFMQTTOGC SensorThings API 07 Power and structure Supplies 12 V DC to the field equipment 01 Acoustic sensor SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 02 Moored buoy RS-485 · SDI-12 03 Micro node (Nano) Ethernet · USB · Analogue I/O ·RS-485 · CAN 04 3GPP NTN terminal Ethernet · USB · RS-232 05 Cellular modem/router Ethernet · USB · RS-232 Site MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B Governed data store Versioned, correction-aware Noise band levels and trends Piling sound exposure Marine mammal detections Calibrated recordings 06 Solar array RS-485 Ethernet · MQTT 5 RS-485 Ethernet Ethernet 3GPP NTN LTE/NR| Item | Equipment | Data ports | Protocols | Power in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Acoustic sensorSound level meter, acoustic event detector or infrasound array element. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 02 | Moored buoyMoored buoy platform carrying met-ocean sensors, with solar power and satellite or cellular telemetry. | RS-485SDI-12 | MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 03 | Micro node (Nano)Single-board or module-class node for sensor sites, gateways and low-power deployments. | EthernetUSBAnalogue I/ORS-485CAN | MQTT 5, OMA LwM2M, CoAP | PoE, 12 V DC, USB PD |
| 04 | 3GPP NTN terminalTerminal using the 3GPP non-terrestrial network air interface (NR-NTN or IoT-NTN) to reach a satellite access node directly. | EthernetUSBRS-232 | 3GPP NR or IoT NTN, OMA LwM2M, MQTT 5 | 12 V DC, Internal battery |
| 05 | Cellular modem/routerLTE or NR modem or router that uses a public carrier or private network as backhaul. | EthernetUSBRS-232 | 3GPP E-UTRA air interface, 3GPP NR air interface, OMA LwM2M | 12 V DC, PoE |
| 06 | Solar arrayPV modules with charge controller sized to the site’s load and climate. | RS-485 | Modbus | — |
How it scales
01 Instruments Arbitrary qualified sensors and instruments whosemeasurements are ingested with calibration, units,geometry, time, custody and uncertainty. ×n 02 Node The minimum useful deployable unit: server, ruggedappliance, radio node, sensor gateway, satelliteterminal, AI, scientific, vehicle or virtual node. Node Node agent 03 Site The minimum independently operable localgovernance and failure domain: one or more nodesplus local network, identity, policy, evidence,storage, products and operator surfaces.SITE
Node Node Node ×n 04 Cluster An optional scale or specialisation domain forscheduling, shared storage, accelerators or datalocality.CLUSTER
×n 05 Fleet Coordinates plans, acknowledgements,convergence evidence, update campaigns andcorrection propagation across nodes and sites.FLEET
Fleet controller ×n 06 Federation An exchange of products, capabilities, events orwork across approved, independently administeredtrust domains, using explicit trust, policy,data-locality, version and correction contracts.TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
×n Verifier Applications Data in the field Telemetry Control Data upstream Control Data upstream Control Exchange Evidence Events Exchange- Data in the field
- MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B; connectors for LoRaWAN, OPC UA and instrument buses.
- Telemetry
- OpenTelemetry OTLP.
- Control
- TLS 1.3 with mutual authentication; protobuf messages over gRPC or HTTP/2.
- Data upstream
- At-least-once publication with repeat-safe keys over the control channel or NATS JetStream; QUIC MAY be used on lossy links.
- Evidence
- DSSE-signed in-toto statements; SLSA provenance; SCITT transparency receipts.
- Events
- Event envelopes mapped to CloudEvents 1.0; channels described in AsyncAPI 3.
- Exchange
- OpenAPI 3.1; the OGC API family; SensorThings; STAC; WIS 2.0.
05From order to operation
Every step, from the first call to a running site.
The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.
- 01 Order
Scope the duty
The scope reads the regulator’s monitoring duties or the construction permit’s noise conditions, shipping and species, and existing moorings. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the mooring plan, metrics, detection models and a price per mooring and per year. The scope is agreed before any site work begins. 1
- 02 Survey
Survey positions
Crews survey positions for depth, seabed, distance from shipping lanes and construction, trawling activity and coverage for reports. Positions follow the monitoring guidance so results compare across the region. Findings shape the kit for each site before anything is built. 2
- 03 Permits
Maritime consent
Moorings are approved by the maritime authority, marked to the rules for their area and published in notices to mariners. Fishing communities are told of positions to avoid trawl losses. Every approval is kept with the mooring record. No crew goes to site before its approvals are in place.
- 04 Build
Calibrate hydrophones
Hydrophones and recorders are calibrated across the frequency bands, nodes configured with the metrics and detection models and enrolled with their identities, and the system is tested end to end before shipping. Nothing ships until the whole kit has passed its tests together. 3
- 05 Install
Deploy moorings
Crews deploy each mooring from a vessel, with the hydrophone at its design depth and the surface buoy above, record positions and depths, and watch the first reports arrive before leaving. Crews follow the site safety plan throughout the work.
- 06 Commission
Commission the levels
Each node proves its identity. Band levels are checked against a reference hydrophone or known sources, detections against expert review, and reports against the recorder’s full audio. The mooring enters service when checks pass. Acceptance is recorded with the owner before handover. 2
- 07 Operate
Track the soundscape
Regulators see band levels and their trend; construction teams see sound exposure during piling and stop when limits or marine mammals require; researchers receive detections and recordings. Every alert and action is kept on the record. Reports for owners and funders come from the same record. 1
- 08 Maintain
Recover, recalibrate, redeploy
Moorings are recovered on schedule, recordings retrieved, hydrophones recalibrated and moorings redeployed. Software updates roll out remotely, and every change and calibration is kept with the mooring record. Maintenance history stays with each site for its whole life. Spares and procedures travel with the crews. 3
06Data products and integration
What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.
Data products
- Noise band levels and trendsMarine regulators
- Piling sound exposureOffshore construction teams
- Marine mammal detectionsResearchers and observers
- Calibrated recordingsScientists
Integration
- Regional data systemsBand levels are submitted in the regional formats.
- Construction controlExposure and detections reach the piling control room.
- ResearchRecordings are shared with researchers.
Exchanged through netCDF-CF, MQTT, OGC SensorThings API.
07Questions buyers ask
Before you scope it.
Which metrics do you report?
The bands and metrics set in the monitoring guidance.
Can it stop piling?
It alerts the control room; the decision is the operator’s under its permit.
What about trawling?
Positions are published and agreed with fishers.
Is the audio kept?
Yes, on the recorder for recovery.
08Resources
The sources behind this page.
Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.
- 1Directive 2008/56/EC establishing a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy (Marine Strategy Framework Directive)European Union · 2008
- 2Monitoring Guidance for Underwater Noise in European SeasEuropean Commission Joint Research Centre · 2014
- 3ISO 18405: Underwater acoustics, terminologyInternational Organization for Standardization · 2017
09Related
Use cases and solutions.
Use caseBioacoustic biodiversity observatory
Open-hardware acoustic recorders on solar power with low-power radio or satellite uplink, for species baselines.The full use case →SolutionOcean and coastal observing
Moored buoys, profiling floats, tide and wave gauges, coastal radar and AIS reception with quality-controlled feeds.Solutions for oceans →SolutionEnvironmental and permit monitoring
Emissions, water quality, noise and dust monitoring for permit conditions, with traceable calibration and evidence bundles.Solutions for oceans →SolutionBiodiversity and habitat monitoring
Acoustic sensors, camera traps that exclude people, eDNA sampling logistics and EO habitat change for nature programmes and disclosures.Solutions for oceans →10Oceans: specialized fields
Other fields of this industry.
Specialized fieldSea level and storm surge
Tide gauges with land-motion GNSS and weather at harbours and coasts, giving real-time surge for warnings and long sea-level records tied to the land they stand on.The full field →Specialized fieldWaves and coastal buoys
Moored buoys that measure waves, wind and sea temperature off ports and coasts, for safe navigation, coastal design and the warnings that keep people off dangerous seas.The full field →Specialized fieldCoastal and bathing water quality
Sondes and samplers at beaches, estuaries and aquaculture zones that watch temperature, oxygen, turbidity and algal blooms, so authorities protect bathers and shellfish in time.The full field →Bring us the site.
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