The WAVY Operations Bundle is a collection of cloud-based services that provide support for field campaigns utilising WAVY drifters. It provides secure and persistent storage for drifter configuration and usage, as well as for the observations collected.

Web and Mobile applications enable conditions for field operations, from setup to deployment, real-time tracking, successful recovery of the drifters and near real-time collection of observed data to WOS.

Together with adequate vehicles in the water, it is possible to recover the deployed drifters, as no loss of drifters was accepted as an operational condition, except when drifters were captured inside jetty rockfills and the wave conditions imposed temporary safety restrictions.

During the H2020-funded project MELOA (2017-2022), the wavy drifters were updated and a new line of drifters has emerged for operation in the deep-sea. The latter was named WAVY Ocean, while the previous ones were rebaptized as WAVY Littoral. With this update a new set of requirements were imposed, namely: a) more sensors and operating modes; b) remotely operated field campaigns in near real-time; c) satellite communications; d) customised operations; authorisation and stream formats; e) storage, validation and curation of data in a common information model regardless of the drifters’ configuration; and f) cataloguing of data (both raw and curated) for further elaboration. More recently, in the EEA Grants-funded project WAVY-NOS (2022-2024), a new family of WAVY drifters has been created, and the capability to support multiple payloads is now a reality - WAVY-Echo adds an echosounder, WAVY-Listener are equipped with hydrophones and WAVY-Imagers carry bottom-mounted video cameras. Once again, a new set of requirements was imposed, namely: a) the need to process real-time streams as they arrive at the platform, b) storage of multimedia observations, and c) real-time visualisation of the new observation data. During the H2020-funded project ILIAD (2022-2025), new requirements were introduced to enhance the capacity for designing real-time data streaming pipelines and, to update the data streaming component with a new UI for designing streaming pipeline configurations.

The WAVY Operations Bundle emerged from these requirements, continuously extending the system with new capabilities (e.g. data streaming and processing, citizen science) and new tools.