Wireless waves

Abstract

Scientists, engineers and graduate students at the University of South Florida's (USF) College of Marine Science (CMS), Ocean Circulation Group (OCG) maintain a real-time monitoring program in the eastern Gulf of Mexico called the Coastal Ocean Monitoring and Prediction System (COMPS), an array of surface and bottom mounted buoys and moorings offshore spanning the west Florida shelf (WFS) from the panhandle to the Dry Tortugas. Recognizing the need for adding wave measurements from the near-shore environment to this program, testing began acquiring data from field instrumentation with a focus on data transmission acoustically, in real-time. This paper evaluates the success in collecting wave measurements with a bottom mounted RD Instruments (RDI) acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP/spl trade/) with Waves Technology, and NEMO, RDI's new Real Time Waves Processing Module, designed specifically for RDI Waves users condensing currents and waves data at the ADCP for transmission to the surface, and then sending these data via acoustic modems (wireless, Benthos, Inc.) through the water column to the surface. Data are then linked through a multipoint radio transceiver system (RF, FreeWave Technologies) back to USF for Web page posting. The site, components, data collection, and comparison between recorded data vs. transmitted data will be discussed and summarized. We conclude that this is a viable yet not trivial means of data collection and telemetry for future products added to the COMPS program.