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Tim McGinnis Head, OE Department & Sr. Principal Engineer tmcginnis@apl.washington.edu Phone 206-543-1346 |
Research Interests
Oceanographic Equipment Design, System Engineering
Biosketch
Tim McGinnis's main interest and expertise is in deep ocean engineering and equipment design. For over 30 years, Tim has been involved with a variety of towed and bottom landing vehicle development projects, deep ocean cabled observatories, and at-sea operations for mapping, imaging, sensing, and sampling the seafloor and water column in water depths to 5000 meters.
Tim joined APL-UW in 2001 and was the System Engineer for the development of the NEPTUNE/MARS power system. Since then has been involved with a number of mooring and profiler developments and deployments at the Laboratory. He is now working on the Ocean Observing Initiative Regional Scale Nodes (RSN) project where he is the lead for ROV-mateable connectors, secondary seafloor extension cables, and development of the Deep Profiler.
Education
B.S. Engineering, University of Washington, 1983
Projects
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Hawaii Ocean Time Series (HOT) Profiler We have developed a system of inductively charging a McLane profiler from a large bank of underwater batteries (actually 5100 "D" cells). The goal is to enable the profiler to profile the entire water column every hour or so for a whole year, which represents a ten-fold advance over current capabilities. |
27 Sep 2011
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ALOHA Mooring The ALOHA/MARS mooring sensor network combines adaptive sampling methods with a moored deep-ocean sensor network. |
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This project will demonstrate the scientific potential of combining adaptive sampling methods with a moored deep-ocean sensor network at the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) station and ALOHA/MARS Observatory (AO). We will directly address the challenge of sampling the ocean with both high temporal resolution and high vertical resolution. With the moored sensor network consisting of a profiler moving between near-surface and abyssal fixed sensors under program control, we will be able to focus the sampling and measurement capabilities on the scientific features of most interest. |
Videos
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MuST The Multi-Sensor Towbody System to Detect and Classify Unexploded Ordnance Munitions, left behind from past military training and weapons testing activities, litter shallow water environments at many hundreds of current and former DoD sites. APL-UW is addressing this munitions remediation problem with the MuST system that uses sonars mounted on a towbody and surface vessel support infrastructure to detect and classify hazards on the seafloor and buried in sediments. |
26 Aug 2019
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Cabled Array The Ocean Observatories Initiative at the University of Washington |
25 Jan 2017
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Adaptable Monitoring Package AMP The AMP shines new light on a complex challenge: monitoring the environment around marine energy conversion sites. AMP is an adaptable sensor package that can withstand the strong currents and waves typical of such environments. Its low-cost ROV deployment system, subsea docking station, and a wet-mate connection for power and data transfer make it a flexible solution for monitoring studies. |
4 Feb 2015
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Publications |
2000-present and while at APL-UW |
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Inductive power mooring lines for OOI's shallow and deep profilers McGinnis, T., G. Cram, and E. Boget, "Inductive power mooring lines for OOI's shallow and deep profilers," Sea Techol., 61, 14-18, 2020. |
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1 Apr 2020 ![]() |
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As oceanographers seek to deploy their field sensors for longer subsea campaigns, advances in mooring line construction and technology are enabling new approaches to moorings. No longer is the mooring line a passive element; instead, the development of the first inductive power mooring line by high-performance fiber-rope maker Pillystran allow it to function as an integral part of the oceanographic monitoring system. |
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An inductive charging and real-time communications system for profiling moorings Alford, M.H., T. McGinnis, and B.M. Howe, "An inductive charging and real-time communications system for profiling moorings," J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol., 32, 2243-2252, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-15-0103.1, 2015. |
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1 Dec 2015 ![]() |
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We describe a system for providing power and communications to moored profiling vehicles. A McLane Moored Profiler (MP) was equipped with a rechargeable battery pack and an inductive charging system to allow it to move periodically to a charging dock at the top of the subsurface mooring. Power was provided from a large bank of alkaline batteries housed in two 0.95-m steel spheres. Data were transferred inductively from the profiler to a mooring controller, and from there back to shore via radio and Iridium satellite modems housed in a small surface communications float on an "L" tether. An acoustic modem provided backup communications to a nearby ship in the event of loss or damage to the surface float. The system was tested in a 180-m-deep fjord (Puget Sound, WA) and at station ALOHA, a 4748-m deep open-ocean location north of Hawaii. Basic functionality of the system was demonstrated, with the Profiler repeatedly recharging at about 300W (with an overall efficiency of about 70%). Data were relayed back to shore via Iridium, and to a nearby ship via the radio and acoustic modems. The system profiled flawlessly for the entire 6-week test in Puget Sound, but charging at the deep site stopped after only 9 days in the deep-ocean deployment owing to damage to the charging station, possibly by surface wave action. |
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A smart sensor web for ocean observation: Fixed and mobile platforms, integrated acoustics, satellites and predictive modeling Howe, B.M., Y. Chao, P. Arabshahi, S. Roy, T. McGinnis, and A. Gray, "A smart sensor web for ocean observation: Fixed and mobile platforms, integrated acoustics, satellites and predictive modeling," IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens., 3, 507-521, doi:10.1109/JSTARS.2010.2052022, 2010. |
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1 Dec 2010 ![]() |
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In many areas of Earth science, including climate change research and operational oceanography, there is a need for near real-time integration of data from heterogeneous and spatially distributed sensors, in particular in situ and space-based sensors. The data integration, as provided by a smart sensor web, enables numerous improvements, namely, (1) adaptive sampling for more efficient use of expensive space-based and in situ sensing assets, (2) higher fidelity information gathering from data sources through integration of complementary data sets, and (3) improved sensor calibration. Our ocean-observing smart sensor web presented herein is composed of both mobile and fixed underwater in situ ocean sensing assets and Earth Observing System satellite sensors providing larger-scale sensing. |
In The News
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MacArtney and the Applied Physics Laboratory Launching FOCUS 3 ROTV Ocean News & Technology, Ocean News staff Collaborating for almost two decades MacArtney and the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington has recently launched the FOCUS 3 – APL’s latest acquisition in the pursuit of unexploded ordnance detection. |
6 Jun 2019
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Tethered robots tested for Internet-connected ocean observatory UW News and Information, Hannah Hickey A massive digital ocean observatory will include a new generation of ocean explorers: robots that will zoom up and down through almost two miles of ocean to monitor the water conditions and marine life above. Scientists, engineers and students will be at sea from July to October 2014 to finish installation of the high-tech facility, which will be the world%u2019s largest Internet-connected ocean observatory. |
13 Mar 2014
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Inventions
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Deep Underwater WIFI Antennas for AUV Record of Invention Number: 47664 |
Disclosure
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28 Mar 2016
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Deep Underwater WIFI Antennas for AUV Record of Invention Number: 47607 Mike Kenney, Yasuo Kuga, Tim McGinnis, Nick Michel-Hart, Chris Siani |
Disclosure
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28 Jan 2016
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