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Welcome to the boatnet wiki! This wiki is used for capturing the Overview, Requirements, and Roadmap for this project.

Overview

Boatnet is a NOAA Fisheries at-sea field data collection capability for both scientific research surveys (fisheries independent data) and observer-covered commercial fishing trips (fisheries dependent data). Over the past few years, our team (NWFSC/FRAM Data Team) has built a number of software applications to support both of these groups of users, only to realize that they are basically collecting the same information and that we should really consolidate the application development into a common, modernized field architecture. That common field architecture is boatnet. The main technical components of this architecture include:

Architecture Technical Components

• NodeJS
• Vuejs / Progressive Web Application (PWA)
• Electron
• CouchDB
• PouchDB

Projects

There are a number of projects within boatnet, for both our scientific surveys and our observers. A project is an application. The different projects include:

Observer Mobile Apps

Surveys

• FPC- Software used by our Field Party Chief / Chief Scientist in the vessel wheelhouse for managing the fishing operations and integrating a variety of environmental and net sensor data
• Cutter- Software built for ruggedized laptops and tablets used in the backdeck of the vessel for gathering specifics about the catch and specimens for fishing operations
• Hook Matrix - Software built for ruggedized tablets specific to our Southern California Hook & Line Survey that captures details about the fish caught on the individual gangions and effort required to catch the fish

Observer

• Observer Web - This module contains all of the observer modules, except for the trips module, and is used by observer staff, vessel captains, permit owners, and observer providers

  • Mobile-first modules for captains to log trips, determine Observer coverage, submit OLE declarations, and capture and submit logbook images.
  • Desktop-first modules for Observer Staff to manage Observer trip selection criteria/rates, debrief Observer trips, edit Boatnet lookups, and other misc Boatnet admin functionality.

• Observer Trips - Software that only contains the observer trips module, enabling deployed observers to collect fishing operations catch and specimen data in a ruggedized tablet environment. This includes OPTECS (Observer Program Technology Enhanced Collection System): A tablet application used by observers to log information about fish caught on board. Observers can record stats such as weight, count, species type, and much more. The data collected is used to estimate how many fish can be sustainably caught.

The Boatnet applications are built using Progressive Web Application (PWA) technologies. For direct file system, serial port, and bluetooth access we will be using the Electron project as required.

There are two observer programs we are planning to support:

• West Coast Ground Observer Program (WCGOP) is a collaborative program between the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission (PSMFC) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The main goal of the WCGOP is the collection of coast wide; year-round discard rates for the groundfish fisheries of the Pacific coast of the United States. This usually involves smaller boats with less hauls.
• At-Sea Hake Observer Program (A-SHOP) This processing sector operates off the U.S. West Coast from the U.S./Canadian border to the Oregon/California border. It consists of large factory vessels that process catch at-sea. They target pacific hake, but can include rockfish and salmon bycatch. Currently the program requires 100% observer coverage.

Projects and Users

It is useful to understand the different classes of users and which applications those users will be using. This is shown below.

Users	Survey FPC	Survey Trawl Cutter Station	Survey Hook & Line Cutter Station	Survey Hook & Line Hook Matrix	Observer Web	Observer Trips
Survey FPCs	x
Survey Biologists		x	x	x
Observer Staff					x
Captains					x
Permit Owners					x
Observer Providers					x
Observers						x

Requirements

These different projects are built using common modules to the maximum extent possible. The following table shows the different modules used by these five applications. Clicking on each module shows screenshots and the functionality/performance requirements for that module.

Module	Survey FPC	Survey Trawl Cutter Station	Survey Hook & Line Cutter Station	Survey Hook & Line Hook Matrix	Observer Web	Observer Trips
Trips						x
Trip Details						x
Hauls	x	x	x	x		x
Haul Details	x					x
Logbook Mode						x
Catch		x				x
Tally						x
Counts & Weights		x				x
Drops				x
Hooks				x
Specimens		x	x			x
Special Projects		x	x			x
Validations	x	x	x	x		x
Serial Port Manager	x	x	x	x		x
Waypoints	x
Reports	x
Settings	x	x	x	x	x	x
External Backup	x					x

The backdeck screens are connected as follows:

Roadmap