National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom
NPL is the UK national metrology institute and is world-leading in metrology for underwater acoustics, NPL provides traceability infrastructure for acoustic measurements, offers unique test facilities and services within Europe, leads development of measurement standards for underwater acoustics including within ISO and IEC, and has been highly active in MSFD EU Technical Sub-Group on noise advising on best practice and guidance in the ocean acoustic measurement.Participation in JOMOPANS will allow NPL to leverage greater impact for its work in standardization for underwater acoustics by producing outputs directly relevant to marine noise monitoring. Participation will enable joint collaborative work with expert partners to enhance the quality of the technical work on standardization and engender buy-in to the standardization process form the marine acoustics community.
NPL has participated in many EU funded projects across a range of technical disciplines over many years, and has been involved in more than 37 projects in the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR) alone, including two current projects in acoustics: UNAC-LOW (Development of calibration standards for underwater acoustics at frequencies of 20 Hz-1 kHz; EARS2 (Metrology for modern hearing assessment and protecting public health from emerging noise sources).
NPL will lead the work of WP3 “Standardisation”, with the aim of developing underwater noise monitoring standards suitable for monitoring MSFD Indicator11.2.1 in the North Sea Region. Work will cover development of guidance and benchmarking on terminology, specification, performance requirements,calibration and deployment of the measurement equipment, analysis of the measured data, acoustic modelling of underwater sound field. NPL will also make a significant contribution to WP2 Communication.
