OceanLab is a new state-of-the-art national research facility being established in Trondheim, Norway, in collaboration with SINTEF and NTNU, and funded by the Norwegian Research Council. Its laboratories in Mid-Norway are designed to meet the requirements of education, research, and innovation across the marine and maritime sectors. Closely linked to this development, the Observatory provides high-quality in-situ data and offers sensor expansion and reconfiguration capabilities.

The Iliad project benefits directly from this infrastructure by accessing continuous environmental observations that support model development, validation, and decision-making.

More information about the other elements of the OceanLab infrastructure, e.g. subsea robotics, aquaculture and autonomous ships, is found at https://www.ntnu.edu/oceanlab.

At SINTEF and NTNU, we strive to adapt to user-requests and the ever-evolving technological developments within ocean science. The OceanLab Observatory provides a unique opportunity for marine environmental research and sensor technology development in this region, accessible to users around the world. It is a dynamic field laboratory that encourages collaboration across research communities and scientific disciplines in technology development and testing of solutions for autonomous operations and ocean ecosystem monitoring. This in-situ laboratory supports cutting-edge research with societal benefits in-line with the United Nations sustainable development goals. In addition to providing sites for 1) in situ lab experiments, 2) sensor technology innovation platforms and 3) data for fundamental research and model development, the laboratory also supports education and science communication, data supporting local environmental policymaking and communication gateways.

The Observatory has been fully operational since 2023, with occasional interruptions for repairs, maintenance, sensor configuration changes, and upgrades.

Data from the surface observatory is available at the link above.

Data from the subsea observatory is available at: http://129.241.152.166:8080/d/Ss0NhyDIz/time-series-graphs?orgId=5&from=now-15d&to=now

Data from the microplastic sensor, which was temporarily installed and tested at the pilot site, is available at: http://3.76.17.156:5010/. The images are available at section ‘Results’ in the upper left menu.