The National Science Foundation has selected the Oregon State University to design and co-ordinate the building of three new hi-tech coastal research vessels for the oceanographic research fleet of the U.S.

The total cost is expected to be $290 million over 10 years.

A project team comprising of OSU, the Glosten Associates and Science Applications International Corporation will be formed and led by Oregon State's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

Initially, the university will receive around $3 million from NSU for designing the 53 meters long three regional class ships.

Later, the project team will be responsible for selecting a shipyard, naval architecture, overseeing construction, coordinating the system integration, testing, commissioning, acceptance and the vessel's transition to operations.

Each ship will feature state-of-the-art propulsion system to support dynamic positioning such as holding the instruments over the side and acoustic sensors for seafloor mapping.

These smaller ships will be used to identify and explore ocean acidification, hypoxia and harmful algal blooms in the West Coast, the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico.

The vessel positioned at West Coast will also measure ocean fault lines to help scientists predict tsunamis.

President Ed ray of OSU said that undergraduate and graduate students interested in marine technology and science will benefit themselves as a diverse group of people from business, engineering and oceanography departments will be working together on this project.

This kind of a project by NSF is being initiated after approximately 42 years.

Once the construction is complete, the vessels will replace aging ships in the oceanographic research fleet.

Currently, the fleet comprises of 20 ships, half of which are more than 30 years old.

The university hopes to operate the first new vessel, which was proposed in the project plan to the NSF. At present, the university operates R/V Oceanus, which is set to retire in the next couple of years.

The university plans to have the first vessel in water by 2019.