A major national R&D project on scientific equipment proposed by Prof. WU Lixin, director, Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, MOE, at the Ocean University of China (OUC), and his team has been recently approved by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The 5-year project, Deep Ocean Smart Float, will be granted 82 million RMB. It is the first time that OUC has been funded by the NSFC Equipment R&D Program. And Deep Ocean Smart Float is the first state-level project for equipment R&D in marine sciences. In 2015, 60 projects have applied and only the TOP 5 are approved after the assessment by 12 state ministries.

Focusing on the important scientific question “role of deep ocean in the global climate system”, the project aims to develop a new mobile observation platform, namely “Smart Float”, with fast dynamic positioning, sustainable ocean energy supply, self-adaption regional high-resolution 3D profiling technologies. The ‘smart float’ integrates a variety of sensors, including physical, acoustical and biogeochemical sensors and it can reach the depth to 2000m with high spatial coverage of global oceans. The development of the ‘smart float’ provides a unique opportunity for POL’s research in deep ocean to achieve great leap-forward development, and support to prevent and reduce natural disasters, utilize marine resource, safe guard maritime operations etc.