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Designing Smarter Field Stations: Common Sensor Platform Station Builder Tool

Tags: Common Sensor Platform

EarthScope’s Common Sensor Platform (CSP) initiative continues to advance efforts to develop and implement standardized station designs for geophysical instrumentation with modular and scalable elements. As part of this work, the CSP team released a beta version of a Station Builder tool in May 2024—an interactive, web-based resource that helps users plan both permanent and temporary deployment station configurations. Over the past year, community feedback has guided the development of several new features that further improve the Station Builder tool.

Screenshot of the EarthScope Station Builder interface showing selected sensors, communication, batteries, and solar components on the left and power-related requirements on the right. Below, four icons illustrate the workflow: choose sensors and telemetry, compute power needs, select solar and batteries, and check station uptime.
Preview and schematic workflow of the Station Builder tool.

The Station Builder tool allows users to explore different combinations of sensors, dataloggers, and telemetry systems and see the power demand needed for each configuration. The user can then estimate the number of solar panels and/or batteries that would be needed to power the station for its desired lifetime. These features support both research design exploration and educational use.

Key new enhancements to the Station Builder tool include the addition of a data accumulation calculator that allows the user to identify how long a datalogger is able to record data based on the sample rate and data storage size. The tool now also allows the user to account for “sun blockage” (such as shading effects from canyon walls, dense vegetation, or other environmental obstacles) when computing Equivalent Sun Hours related to site selection. Another key update is the addition of first-level compatibility tagging between sensors and dataloggers, helping users quickly identify viable equipment pairings and avoid configuration errors.

Side-by-side Station Builder results comparing full sun versus cloudy and shaded conditions. Left graph shows stable battery charge and 100% uptime. Right graph shows fluctuating battery levels, reduced sun hours, and a note indicating more batteries or panels are needed, with uptime dropping to 86% and one shutdown period.
The Station Builder tool now allows you to more accurately determine power needs. Compare a situation with ideal equivalent sun hours (ESH) on the left, with that same station configuration but with reduced ESH due to cloudy weather and sun blockage on the right.

Along with the recently released requirements document and technical design document, the Station Builder Tool demonstrates the CSP’s commitment to collaborative engineering and transparent, community-guided system development. As EarthScope-supported scientific and operational capabilities continue to evolve under the NSF National Geophysical Facility, the CSP project and Station Builder tool will remain dynamic and adaptable as new technologies and research needs emerge across the geophysical community. Users can explore the updated Station Builder tool here. The CSP team welcomes continued feedback as development progresses and additional functionality is introduced.