Draft:Douglas C. Webb

Douglas C. Webb is an American innovator in oceanographic research technology, and was a pioneer in the early development of transistorized computers. His early contributions to oceanographic technology were made at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he worked for 20 years beginning in 1962, designing instruments to study deep ocean currents and pioneering in the study and use of ocean acoustics. He formed Webb Research Corporation in 1982 to develop and manufacture instruments for physical oceanography and naval research. The company originated a family of products that used neutral and variable buoyancy to control the depth of instruments in the ocean, and also produced long-range low-frequency acoustic sources. Webb Research products, now manufactured by Teledyne Webb Research, are central to the international ARGO program, a global array of thousands of autonomous ocean sensor platforms.

A Marine Technology Society posting in January 2021 observed that Webb’s “innovative work in oceanography includes low-frequency acoustic sound sources used for water mass tracking and tomography (SOFAR, RAFOS, Tonpilz), Vertical Current Meters (VCMs) to measure water chimney convection, profiling floats (ALACE and APEX) that evolved into the ARGO program, and the genesis of ocean gliders (Slocum). The sound sources remain in use today for a variety of applications.  Over the last 20 years of the Argo program, the floats have made over 2 million ocean profiles, or four times as many profiles as all other ocean observing tools combined. The Slocum gliders, capable of crossing ocean basins with well over a year of endurance, are routinely being used to measure and monitor many facets of the ocean including biogeochemical properties, whale and penguin movements, and facilitating hurricane intensity predictions.” (1)    

Early life and education

Webb was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on November 25, 1929. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Queens University in 1952 and an M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Manchester, England, in 1954.

Webb was married in 1957 to Shirley (Lyons) Webb, an artist and kindergarten teacher, and high-school classmate in Ontario. The couple soon moved to Ivrea, Italy, where Webb was employed by Olivetti in the early development of computers for business applications. The couple soon became fluent in Italian and passable in French, and traveled around Europe on a single-cylinder motorcycle as well as sailing the Mediterranean on their wooden sailboat Meg.

First Transistorized Computer

While working for Ferranti Ltd., a large electrical engineering firm in Manchester, and also studying for his master’s degree, Webb and fellow researcher Richard Grimsdale built and demonstrated the first transistorized digital computer in November 1953. The 48-bit machine used 92 point-contact transistors and 550 diodes. The experimental machine went on to become the Metrovick 950, the first commercial transistorized computer built from 1959 onwards by Metropolitan Vickers.  

The decision to use transistors rather than vacuum tubes (aka thermionic valves) for the first time in a computer was described in an April 1956 publication of the Institution of Electrical Engineers:

“Initially, thermionic valves were to be used throughout.  Reduction in size was to be obtained primarily at the expense of speed of operation, the speed proposed being about one-tenth of that of the Mark I and one hundredth of that of the Mark II. However, when towards the end of 1952 it was learned that point contact transistors would become available in sufficient numbers, their use promising to give still further economy, the project took on its final form of a transistor/magnetic-drum computer.  The experience which then existed in the use of point-contact transistors was almost entirely concerned with the operation of circuits using single transistors, and little was known of their use when interconnected in large numbers; furthermore, since a point-contact transistor operates inherently as a 2-state device, it was evident that its use would considerably influence the engineering logic of a digital machine.” (2)

Contributions to oceanography

In 1962, Doug and Shirley relocated to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where Webb was employed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). During four decades at WHOI, he created and developed numerous technologies used in physical oceanography research and participated in dozens of long research missions on ships. Much of his work was related to technologies designed to measure the properties and motion of water in the deep ocean.

With encouragement from renowned physical oceanographer Henry Stommel, and building on the work of John Swallow, Webb explored the possibility of using the global deep sound or SOFAR (sound fixing and ranging) channel to deploy and track revolutionary, neutrally buoyant, data-collecting floats over 1,000-kilometer distances. Ten years later, 20 SOFAR floats were deployed to great success for study of Atlantic Ocean eddies during the international Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (MODE). Webb narrated a 1973 documentary, The Turbulent Ocean, about MODE.

The SOFAR work combined multiple technical challenges, including neutral buoyancy, long range ocean acoustics, having autonomous devices survive long exposure to pressure and corrosive salt water, and operating on strict energy budgets imposed by batteries (decades before lithium batteries were available). These instruments, drifting 1000 meters below the ocean surface without  maintenance or intervention, had a nominal endurance of 2 years, although one was tracked for 9 years. These technical challenges and solutions were the foundation for decades of oceanographic instrument design.

In 1971, Webb and Dr. Roger Payne published a seminal paper “postulating that prior to the advent of modern shipping, the songs of fin whales could be heard across an ocean basin and suggesting that noise from commercial shipping might be interfering with whale communication, a notion which seemed far-fetched at the time but which is now widely accepted.” (3)

Webb’s expertise in the technology of long-range undersea acoustic signaling contributed to the development of Ocean Acoustic Tomography, a technique used for large-scale remote sensing of the interior of the ocean.

Transition to Webb Research Corporation

In 1982, continuing to collaborate with colleagues at WHOI and other marine institutions on instruments that would contribute to understanding of the ocean interior, Webb left WHOI to form his own company, Webb Research Corporation (WRC), where he invented and manufactured instruments for physical oceanography and naval research. The company developed a family of products that used neutral and variable buoyancy to control the depth of instruments in the ocean, as well as long-range low-frequency acoustic sources. Their products were used by laboratories in 20 nations, and are central to the international ARGO program, a global array of thousands of autonomous ocean sensor platforms.

Webb conceived, developed and manufactured the undersea glider, a long-endurance winged undersea instrument platform propelled by buoyancy changes rather than a propeller.  Seeking scientific support and applications for the new concept, Webb brought it to the attention of his colleague and neighbor Henry Stommel who described it in a futuristic story in 1989. In 1994 Webb was granted a patent for a unique thermal engine that used energy harvested from oceanic temperature differences to propel the glider. (Most modern variants are powered by batteries rather than the thermal engine).

In 2009, Rutgers University researchers deployed a battery powered version of the glider for the first-ever trans-Atlantic crossing of an autonomous underwater vehicle. The glider was subsequently displayed in the Smithsonian Museum. This technology is now a staple of ocean research and monitoring.

One glider, owned by the US Navy, received international coverage in December 2016, when it was briefly seized by China while operating in the South China Sea.

Webb Research Corporation was sold to Teledyne in 2008 and became Teledyne Webb Research for which Webb continued to consult until recently.

Awards

The author or co-author of 63 publications, and the inventor or co-inventor of 15 US patents, Webb, along with Dr. Thomas Rossby of the University of Rhode Island, was named recipient of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Bigelow Medal in 1988. He received the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society's 2005 Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.

He was also the recipient of the American Geophysical Union's Ocean Science Award in 2017; his response to this award read, in part, “Bringing to life new tools for global ocean observation involves many people from laboratories and research centers around the world. In receiving this award, I wish to acknowledge the contribution of them all. They include the designers and builders of the tools and the scientists who accepted the risk of using novel instruments.”

In 2021, he was appointed Oceanographer Emeritus at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for work that “crossed and merged the boundaries of science and technology in elegant fashion.”

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Personal life

As an octogenarian, and a lifelong aficionado of vintage cars, Webb fully restored and drove a beloved 1924 Brescia Bugatti that he purchased a half-century earlier as a student.  He also owned, at various times, a model A Ford, a Trojan, a Lancia Aurelia, and a Lotus Seven.

Webb is an avid reader, and lover of cats, travel, mystery novels, P.G. Woodhouse, jokes, puns, long train trips, and Italian food. He is proud of his Canadian heritage and frequently visits relatives there.

US Patents

5,303,552  4/19/1994  Compressed gas buoyancy generator powered by temperature differences in a fluid body

5,291,847  5/8/1994    Autonomous propulsion within a volume of fluid

6,807,856  10/26/2004    Variable buoyancy profiling device

7,096,814  8/29/2006   Variable buoyancy device

8,265,809  9/11/2012  Autonomous underwater vehicle with current monitoring

8,331,198    12/11/2012   Gas-filled bubble sound source

8,441,892 5/14/2013  Gas-filled bubble seismo-acoustic source

8,634,276  1/21/2014    Tunable bubble sound source        

8,875,645  11/4/2014  Variable buoyance profiling float

9,168,990  10/27/2015  Variable buoyancy profiling float

9,383,463  7/5/2016  Doubly resonant seismic source

10,139,503  11/27/2018   Doubly resonant seismic source

10,144,035   12/4/2018  Low-frequency sound source for underwater sound propagation research and calibration

10,401,511     9/3/2019  Dual resonant single aperture seismic source

10,472,034   11/12/2019  Hybrid energy harvesting system for thermal-powered underwater vehicle

European Patents

EP3329303B1   10/6/2016   Doubly resonant seismic source

References

1) MTS Staff. “WHOI Appoints Douglas C. Webb as Oceanographer Emeritus”. Marine Technology News, January 19, 2021

2) Kilburn, T., R.L. Grimsdale, and D.C. Webb. (1956) “A Transistor Digital Computer With A Magnetic Drum Store” The Institution of Electrical Engineers, Convention on Digital Computer Techniques, 9^th–13^th April, 1956, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mfQVNLpNRXuJhaJZb16pwhdn1z0i8smQ/view.