What we do

Mission

The Engineering Development Divison (EDD) supports the PMEL research effort with innovations in the fields of electronics, mechanics, materials, and software engineering. The staff is responsive to the needs of a broad range of scientific investigators, and the nature and scope of projects vary accordingly. Project engineering is employed to expand and refine our measurement capability in the marine environment.

History

PMEL's Engineering Development Division has a 25 year history of developing robust and cost effective technology relevant to NOAA’s mission. The PMEL surface mooring technology developed in 1978 became the TAO array that led to NOAA’s successful forecast of the 1997 El Nino. A more recent PMEL effort over the past six years led to the development of the DART® tsunami technology (patent# 7,289,907) to monitor deep-ocean pressures in real time to NOAA’s tsunami warning system. The tsunami technology has been transferred to NOAA/NWS operations at the National Data Buoy Center and commercially licensed to SAIC. The core communication technology for the DART system was used to develop the portable NeMO net seafloor observatory with real-time, two way communications from a shore side computer to an active volcano at a depth of 1500m.