Mini-Buoys Make Impact

UK-based Planet Ocean reports a significant increase in uptake of their new Minibuoy system. Minibuoy is designed for sheltered and inland waters deployments. The platform has already been used for a variety of applications including dredge monitoring and water quality monitoring. Mini-Metbuoy is a small meteorological buoy providing wind speed and direction, air temperature, air pressure and humidity along with GPS position. Acoustibuoy which draws on the unique features if the Instrument Concepts ic-Listen range of smart hydrophones.  

The most recent configuration to ship saw a Valeport MIDAS EMCM current meter, deployed below a minibuoy (image).

The 0.61m diameter platform, the smallest in the range which extends to 3.6m has recently undergone a complete mechanical overhaul with an all polyethylene equipment housing replacing the original stainless steel version. The new design is manufactured using a computer controlled flat bed router which allows custom housings to be manufactured quickly and cheaply. Standard housings can carry either two 10W or two 5W solar panels. An additional mooring point below the buoyancy module has been added that provides improved stability in higher currents, and a choice of 7 different buoyancy modules are offered to cover a huge range of environmental conditions. Buoyancy can be stacked to create spar buoy configurations should the need arise.

Communication with the low-power DBT-3 is bi-directional, and the buoy/sensors can be configured remotely from the desk meaning no costly site visits are required. Position alarms as well as over or under condition alarms are sent by email and/or SMS text.

Acoustibuoy is a small, simple to deploy PAM (Passive Acoustic Monitoring) buoy, which measures, records and transmits calibrated acoustic data via either UHF radio or GRPS cell phone telemetry direct to the web. Raw WAV files, or FFT Spectral data can be sent. The system can be used for acoustic environmental impact studies, turbine and wave generator diagnostics and performance monitoring, marine mammal detection and monitoring and diver monitoring.