Subsea measurement apparatus, method of compresssing measurement data and method of providing inter-compatibility between apparatus

A method of compressing measurement data, the method comprising:

• providing a processing resource to support a first execution environment and a second execution environment;
• executing firmware in the first execution environment;
• obtaining a sensor measurement in respect of a medium;
• pre-processing the sensor measurement using the firmware to produce measurement data having first information value;
• executing a user-defined application in the second execution environment to obtain the measurement data and processing the measurement data in accordance with a predetermined processing algorithm, thereby producing processed measurement data having second information value.

A method of providing inter-compatibility with an underwater measurement apparatus, the method comprising:

• providing a processing resource in the underwater measurement apparatus to support a first execution environment and a second execution environment;
• executing firmware in the first execution environment;
• obtaining a sensor measurement in respect of a medium;
• pre-processing the sensor measurement using the firmware to produce measurement data having first information value;
• executing a user-defined application in the second execution environment to provide a command interpreter configured to receive a first command in accordance with a first command protocol and to translate the first command to a second command in accordance with a second command protocol, the firmware being configured to operate in accordance with the second command protocol.