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Common Sensor Platform team releases engineering design for community feedback

Tags: Common Sensor Platform

Following two years of planning and developmental work, the Common Sensor Platform (CSP) team released an initial design of instrumentation components and engineering practices during a recent EarthScope team meeting in San Diego. 

The CSP is a unified engineering effort across the NSF GAGE and SAGE facilities to create standardized station designs for geophysical instrumentation with modular and scalable elements. By using the team’s engineering expertise to enhance design commonalities, the CSP will help to optimize engineering efforts at both permanent and portable stations across a wide variety of environments.

In the initial engineering design, the CSP team outlined key subsystems of stations including sensor/data acquisition, power systems, site infrastructure, and communication systems. Each system has been designed with either core and/or modular and scalable elements. These station components are accompanied by technical documentation with streamlined operations and maintenance protocols.

Schematic illustration depicting sensor, power input, communications, power storage, and infrastructure components of the CSP
Schematic of main systems in a standard CSP station

A recording of the full community release presentation detailing the initial CSP engineering design is available for viewing on our presentations YouTube channel.

As part of the first round of project deliverables, the CSP team also debuted an interactive web tool to help users configure station components before requesting support. This tool allows users to see the power demand needed for different instrument configurations and estimate the number of solar panels and/or batteries needed to power the station. Community members can access a beta version of the web tool and learn more about its functionalities from the recorded presentation. The web tool is under continued development, and community feedback will be used for improvements and additional functionality.

The CSP team will be holding a special interest group session during the upcoming NSF SAGE/GAGE Community Science Workshop as an avenue for additional community feedback and for soliciting ideas for the coming round of CSP engineering efforts.

If you have any feedback or input you would like to share with the CSP team on the initial engineering design, please send them to csp@earthscope.org.