Instrumentation

The NSF National Geophysical Facility Instrumentation Services delivers critical capabilities, including inventory, life-cycle, and risk management; engineering; instrumentation testing and maintenance; quality control and network operations; project support; and instrument requests and scheduling. Instrumentation Services strives to deliver the highest possible level of technical performance with the greatest financial and logistical efficiency. Advanced engineering and investigator support practices, developed over decades, are readily translated and implemented for both core and emerging sensor technologies and scientific applications. 

Support is provided for regional and global network operations (such as the Network of the Americas and the Global Seismographic Network), principal investigator experiment support (such as portable seismic, geodetic, and near-surface geophysics instrumentation), and seafloor geodesy. Instrumentation Services teams include cross-trained engineers along with facility support personnel who are assigned to programs that use resources and expertise across the department. 

The Common Sensor Platform initiative brings together engineering staff to standardize engineering approaches and hardware with a modular, scalable, sensor-agnostic platform. This initiative also makes it possible for engineers to move among programs and still have deep knowledge of hardware systems, making both portable and persistent installations much more efficient and easier to service, increasing uptimes and reducing costs.