Modular Ocean Data Acquisition System (MODAQ)
MODAQ provides a robust, verifiable, data acquisition solution for ME applications. Designed for offshore ME device deployments, MODAQ provides a rugged, streamlined, and reliable data pipeline for high-quality ME device testing. MODAQ is comprised of three components; MODAQ-Field, MODAQ-Cloud, and MODAQ-Web, to handle data collection, processing, and monitoring. MODAQ is developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office. For more information about MODAQ and NREL’s open water validation capabilities see: https://www.nrel.gov/water/open-water-testing.html
MODAQ-Field
MODAQ can be equipped with a variety of sensors and instruments to meet measurement objectives including strain, loads, temperatures, voltage, electrical current, accelerations, rotations, GPS, rotational speed and position, analog and digital signals, and a variety of atmospheric and oceanic measurements. MODAQ can process data and develop derived parameters on-board or upload raw data to MODAQ-Cloud for more detailed and complex analyses. Control rules can be integrated into MODAQ to rapidly respond and react to changing conditions or threshold violations.
MODAQ-Field Specifications
- Built on the National Instruments CompactRIO (cRIO) acquisition and control system
- WiFi/Cellular/satellite modem for communication to shore; on device data storage (> 2TB) when bandwidth is limited
- Meets the rigorous requirements of IEC testing procedures
- cRIO chassis contains up to 8 slots for input/output (I/O) modules; additional input modules can be added to create a customized, distributed data acquisition system
- Capable of reading various analog inputs, serial data streams, and digital I/O
- cRIO platform contains an FPGA and a real-time processor allowing for high speed, deterministic data input to the MODAQ system
- GPS synchronized timestamp allowing for a timestamp synchronization on the order of nanoseconds.
- Sampling rates over 50 kHz enabling detailed data analysis and power quality assessments
- Software is developed in National Instruments LabVIEW
MODAQ-Cloud
MODAQ-Cloud is a robust and customizable data processing and storage pipeline that utilizes a variety of Amazon Web Services (AWS) capabilities to provide:
- Long-term, secure data storage
- Data Quality Control (QC) and processing
- Architecture flexibility
- Data from external sources such as NDBC and CDiP to keep all project relevant data together for easy analysis.
MODAQ-Cloud leverages the ME Data Pipeline and the Marine and Hydrokinetic ToolKit (MHKiT) for standardized data formatting and processing.
MODAQ-Web
MODAQ-Web is a dashboard for displaying near-real-time data collected by MODAQ-Field and stored in MODAQ-Cloud:
- Key parameters are displayed as charts, tables, and plots
- Operational monitoring tool including:
- Maps to monitor device location and movement.
- Watch circles
- Alerts if a device has drifted outside the planned location.
- Additional plots and metrics pulled from MODAQ-Cloud
