The DART system development is an ongoing 5-year effort by PMEL engineers
and researchers to report near real-time open ocean data to make
tsunami warnings more timely and accurate (Bernard et al., 2001). The
engineering challenge was formidable and involved 19 ocean cruises and over
100 days at sea. The system design had to meet two fundamental technological
challenges: 1) The deep-ocean buoy mooring must survive the hostile
environment of the North Pacific; 2) The deep ocean-to-surface acoustic data
link must perform with high reliability in a hostile ocean environment.
A DART development timeline from 1996–2001 is shown in Fig. 2. The
general system design is fundamentally as envisioned in 1996; however, many
technical improvements were implemented to increase the reliability and reduce
the cost of the system. Four major developments and results are highlighted
below.
(usually >3 cm).