As part of its mission, COVE supplies critical physical and digital infrastructure to support the development, testing, and scaling of new marine technologies, contributing to economic growth and advancements in ocean sciences.
HARBORING INNOVATION
COVE’s success is exemplified by its innovative initiatives like the Stella Maris multi-sensor seabed platform. Stella Maris supports rapid product development, verification, and commercialization, generating real-time data and providing 24/7 access to users. This is complemented by COVE’s Digital Harbour project, a comprehensive digital repository offering real-time and historical data that fuels research and industry activities, helping drive the sector forward.
Building on this foundation, COVE recently partnered with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), the science and technology organization for Canada’s Department of National Defence, on the Seasonal Vessel Tracking Project (SVT). This collaboration focuses on developing a dual-use acoustic technology solution for vessel tracking across various seasonal and operational conditions. On the Halifax Harbour, where COVE is located, is ideal for testing due to its high marine traffic and proximity to the ferry routes between Halifax and Dartmouth, which serve as effective test cases for tracking technology validation.
ADVANCING DATA COLLECTION
To achieve the project’s goals, COVE is implementing a sophisticated system of physical and digital infrastructure to collect extensive navigational and environmental data. Automatic Identification System (AIS) data from local marine traffic, combined with GPS data from ferry vessels, enables real-time tracking of vessel movements.
COVE also collects meteorological data—such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed—from a weather station positioned on its tallest building, helping scientists understand how environmental factors impact acoustic signal propagation underwater.

Key aspects influencing underwater sound propagation include temperature variations with depth and water currents. To accurately measure these variables, COVE has deployed an automatic profiling system by their marine terminals that generates hourly sound speed and temperature profiles, essential for modeling sound travel through Halifax Harbour. An Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) is installed near COVE at a depth of 20 meters and approximately 300 meters from the main site. This instrument records data on temperature, pressure, sound speed, and water currents, which are vital for understanding the dynamic underwater environment where the acoustic technology will operate.
All data from COVE’s instruments are sent to a shore station on the southernmost dock, then transmitted via fiber optics to a main server located approximately 500 meters away. This setup ensures efficient and secure data collection and transfer, enabling real-time analysis and storage.
Supporting this infrastructure is a robust digital system engineered by COVE’s technology team. The system automates data collection and management, allowing continuous monitoring of instruments and automated data capture. Raw sensor data are validated, processed, and stored as daily files are timestamped with GPS accuracy.
To handle the large data volumes, the main server uses a Network Attached Storage (NAS) with redundancy measures to prevent data loss. Data can be accessed by registered users through a secure FTP interface and is also exportable in SQL and other standard formats, allowing easy sharing with industry partners for further analysis.
VERSATILE SOLUTIONS
The SVT project will produce a large unclassified dataset, serving as a valuable resource for developing software solutions for vessel tracking under a range of environmental conditions including the far north in Canada in addition to hosting and managing this extensive dataset,
COVE will provide curated data packages to industry partners to support the creation of passive Detection, Classification, Localization, and Tracking (DCLT) algorithms. These algorithms will be tailored to acoustically monitor Halifax Harbour’s ferries and, in time, could form an embedded solution for tracking similar marine environments worldwide.
The SVT Project exemplifies COVE’s mission to support the commercialization of dual-use technologies, enhancing both commercial and defense capabilities. By fostering solutions that are versatile across different sectors, COVE strengthens Halifax’s position as a leader in marine innovation.
COVE is more than an innovation hub—it is a catalyst for marine technology growth and supporting commercialization. Through partnerships and cutting-edge infrastructure, COVE fosters a collaborative environment where transformative ideas evolve into market-ready solutions, driving forward the marine sector.
This feature appeared in ON&T Magazine’s 2025 Special Edition, The Future of Ocean Technology, Vol. 5, to read more access the magazine here.