The Moving Vessel Profiler: A New Path to Success for Scientific Missions

Originally featured in Sea Technology Magazine (2025).

Fact: scientific decisions are only as good as the data they are based on. In the face of growing demand for reliable, high-resolution, and cost-effective ocean data, scientists are under pressure to do more with less.

Enter the Moving Vessel Profiler (MVP), the undisputed market leader in automated, real-time underway profiling systems. Backed by over twenty-five years of expertise, thousands of successful missions, and millions of individual casts, the MVP is truly the market standard for optimized, cutting-edge ocean data collection. Long recognized as the standard in hydrographic survey work, the MVP is now being embraced by leading scientific teams as a game changer for ocean science applications.

FIG 1: Tom Farrar, Principal Investigator of the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE), talks about the positive impact of the MVP30-350.

Compromising on data density, reliability, or operational efficiency should not be an option. Whether it's monitoring coastal systems, investigating climate-driven shifts, or tracking water quality after extreme events, the unique vertical profiling technology of the MVP is a highly strategic choice.

Why MVP for science?

The MVP was designed for high-density water column profiles collected continuously and in real time. It's the perfect fit.

It's no secret that scientific credibility depends on data quality. Data density isn't just a luxury; it's a requirement for accuracy and confidence. Gaps or inconsistencies in data force scientists to interpolate or make assumptions, thus introducing uncertainty and error. The MVP transforms water column sampling from a handful of sporadic casts to hundreds or even thousands of high-resolution profiles. All this, without interrupting operations! With the MVP, you get more data per km of ocean covered, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the water column. For projects tracking subtle environmental changes such as nutrient gradients or turbidity plumes, this level of detail is critical to understand the behaviour and implications of said features.

Ocean conditions change quickly - with real-time data collection, scientists are able to detect dynamic and localized phenomena as they occur and modify sampling routines on the fly. Detect a high-interest area such as a turbidity spike? Re-route immediately to sample in greater detail. Identify a low-variability area? Shift focus to a zone with more scientific value. Decisions can be made without waiting for post-mission analysis, transforming research strategies from reactive to proactive. In turn, scientists are able to avoid wasting resources on low-impact areas and avoid redundant coverage.

The MVP is by nature a tool for continuous profiling. Where traditional CTD casts require stopping the vessel for every profile, the MVP deploys and recovers the tow body to its towed position while underway, eliminating the need for human intervention. To put it simply, this is a major efficiency gain: hundreds of profiles may be taken in the time it would normally take to get a handful.

While a powerful tool when used in isolation, the MVP also augments existing processes. Take a rosette sampler, for example. With a deep water MVP, a crew may be able to take fewer rosette samples (often taking between 2-5 hours of static ship time), and complement that data with underway profiles to capture what's happening between these incredibly laborious casts. While one may not negate the use of the other, the two tools in tandem make for a major operational efficiency improvement.

By improving both the quality and quantity of data collected per hour, mission ROI increases, and ship time - one of the most expensive resources in marine research - is maximized. What could be better?

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The ocean is full of dynamic structures just a few kilometres across that can change within days, yet they have an outsized influence on our climate, marine life, and the exchange of heat and carbon with the atmosphere. Until now, these small-scale processes have been extremely difficult to observe in three dimensions and in real time. The MVP300 is a game-changer: it allows us to profile the ocean down to the abyss while the ship is underway, capturing physical, chemical and biological data at unprecedented resolution. With it, we can finally map how these fleeting features work, and better understand their role in shaping the climate system.

Sabrina Speich
Professor of Physical Oceanography and Climate Sciences
Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique

FIG 2: August 2025, Nice: MVP300 sea trial (SAT) and testing on Ifremer vessel Thalassa, for Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD). This MVP will deploy a number of 3rd party environmental sensors including but not limited to the Rinko III DO Sensor, SBE18 pH Sensor and the SUNA V2 Nitrate Sensor.

Third-Party Sensor Integration

The MVP is a highly versatile platform, designed to integrate the full suite of X2change sensors, as well as nearly all 3rd party instrumentation available to end-users. It really is data, over everything else.

FIG 3: The MVP is designed to take advantage of nearly all instrumentation available, including but not limited to AML Oceanographic, Turner Designs, SeaBird Scientific, Seapoint Sensors, and JFE Advantech.

The MVP comes in all shapes and sizes: from smaller and all-electric to larger electro-hydraulic platforms. Various sizes of tow bodies provide the ability to deploy not only the core hydrographic instrumentation (Sound Velocity, Pressure, Conductivity, and Temperature), but also a wide array of oceanographic and scientific instruments. Currently, more than fifteen different third-party sensors have been successfully integrated onto MVP tow bodies to support scientific missions, such as the Seabird ECO Triplet and the SBE18 pH sensor. Most popularly, customers ask to configure the Rinko III DO2 Instrument by JFE, the ECO FLNTU Instrument by Seabird Scientific, and the SBE 49 FastCAT CTD by Seabird Scientific.

AML's MVPX2 instrument is designed to accommodate expansion ports, allowing the smaller tow bodies to support up to six parameters (X2change, or other). Levelling up, the larger tow body design also incorporates a Data Telemetry Module (DTM), offering a number of additional ports (bulkheads) that allow for both analog and serial instrumentation. With each instrument measuring up to four parameters, it's very likely scientists could be measuring ten to twelve parameters in the water column continuously, while underway. The DTM also incorporates a power line mode and multiplexing, feeding these sensor outputs into one streamlined signal that sends instrumentation data from the tow body to the lab.

For all MVP operations, the systems require a pressure sensor for tow body depth. Outside of this, any restrictions come down simply to packaging - the instrumentation or sensor must physically fit into the tow body mechanically. Our dedicated team is ready and willing to find creative solutions to the configuration demands of your mission.

FIG 4: November 2019, São Vicente: MVP30-350 with AML CTD and Turner Designs Cyclops-7F Chlorophyll Fluorometer gets installed on FS METEOR. Supporting GEOMAR's Modular Observation Solutions for Earth Systems (MOSES) Project, the data will be used to aid understanding of the ocean carbon uptake in upwelling areas.

The industry's leading platform for real-time, underway profiling, the MVP is far more than just a hydrographic survey tool: it's now redefining what's possible for ocean science. Fully compatible with both AML and third-party sensors, it provides the flexibility to build the data package your research mission demands. From climate research to coastal monitoring, the MVP helps you collect more, waste less, and act faster.

Connect with our team today to learn more about making your scientific mission more efficient.

sales@amloceanographic.com