Funding Year: 2008
Funding Duration: 2008 -2011
Funding Source: IBM, IDA
Lead Partner: IBM
Project Partner:
- Marine Institute
- Dublin City University
Project Summary
SmartBay is a test and demonstration research infrastructure comprising a networked deployment of a suite of emerging new technologies, including:
- A fibre-optic cable from shore to an underwater hub
- A variety of instrument nodes and sensor packages
- An instrumentation test site facility
- Multi-beam digital and geotechnical database for the area
- Deployment of moored and drifting buoys
- Navigation, communication and telemetry infrastructure
- Advanced data processing, integration and presentation tools.
Together, these are intended to provide a comprehensive set of the tools and technologies that will be utilised in future customised solutions for the monitoring of important water bodies, on a global basis. SmartBay will be a unique, world-class infrastructure from which Ireland can create an indigenous cluster of research and industrial technology development and testing capabilities and activities to support the commercialisation of environmental technologies. Smartbay forms the basis of a planned multiyear collaboration with the IBM centre of excellence for Water Management.
Backed by IDA Ireland, the Centre of Excellence for Water Management is the second such facility created by IBM worldwide, following an earlier investment in a site in Amsterdam. Water management is seen as a critical problem in light of environmental concerns around climate change.
This centre of excellence in Dublin will specialise in marine, coastal and fresh water research, technology development and technology innovation in the areas of water quality, water monitoring, water compliance and resource management.
The €7m investment will last for three years, by which time it’s hoped some of the technologies developed at the centre can be commercialised.
One of the centre’s first projects involves a collaboration with the Marine Institute on its national research SmartBay project, which is currently under development at Galway Bay. This project uses sub-sea sensors to gather data on the aquatic environment, which can then be fed into real-time modelling systems. This will allow the Marine Institute to make predictions on flooding events or navigation hazards.