The site development follows a common theme: develop a detailed understanding of the geophysical conditions and work closely with the DCL system developers to provide any specific data unique to and needed by the particular system. The three US sites each have some unique features: the Washington site, shown below, is well suited (because of water depth) for surface ship towed systems; the Florida site is positioned to test systems in water depths of 5 meters or less; the Hawaii site has extremely high water clarity to test optical sensors.

The Mediterranean site has the potential for comparing European-developed systems with their counterparts from the US.