Discover Ulti-Buoy

In water quality monitoring applications or relaying data from bottom mounted instruments, Ulti-buoy solutions offer superior value.

The Ulti-buoy with Cellular or Satellite telemetry, S9 inductive modem technology and numerous possible sensors enables reliable, low cost, high-accuracy monitoring in fresh or salt water. Hull options range from 30 to 60 cm diameter, allowing a greater range of applications and sensor payloads. The buoys are easily deployed/recovered from a small boat, fully submersible to 15 meters, and sensors can be positioned at user-adjustable depths. 

Real-Time Monitoring

The Ulti-Buoy Platform offers the most cost-effective solution for a wide variety of high accuracy real-time monitoring and data telemetry relay applications.  The main components including buoy hull, controller, sensor payload  and wire rope mooring are highly configurable, and buoy controllers may be purchased separately to upgrade existing out-dated logging systems or create new custom systems.

A typical Ulti-Buoy “temperature chain” configuration consists of a small buoy with wire rope mooring, buoy controller with inductive modem, GPS, telemetry modem, and S9’s inductively coupled “XTP” temperature sensors attached to the mooring wire. High accuracy  temperature measurements from multiple depths are transmitted via cellular or Iridium satellite telemetry and data are delivered directly to the users’ desktop or smartphone. The self-powered XTP sensors sample simultaneously at a programmable interval, and transmit their data to the Ulti-Buoy controller via inductive telemetry which uses the mooring wire as the data transmission medium, eliminating underwater cables and connectors. Hundreds of sensors may be  installed on the wire and users can position/re-position them to increase resolution through the thermocline or other points in the water column.  Multi-parameter Instruments including typical Water Quality Sondes, or CTD, DO/pH sensors can be added to an Ulti-Buoy temperature array using S9’s Underwater Ulti-modem.

Users need only to deploy the buoy and view and manage data with provided software.  The cloud data service is included free for three years. Cellular or Iridium telemetry service can also be provided by Soundnine providing a total single-source solution.

Telemetry Relay Applications

Subsurface moorings or instrumented bottom platforms have many advantages over surface moorings, including vessel traffic avoidance and the potential for damage from weather, accidents and vandalism. However, without a surface mooring, these advantages typically exclude practical and cost-effective near real-time access to the data, until now!.  The Ulti-buoy with underwater inductive telemetry can retrieve that data and transmit it via Cellular or Iridium (SBD or RUDICS) satellite telemetry.

The Ulti-buoy is designed to withstand repeated submergence for prolonged periods of extreme wind and wave conditions (storms), while continuing to log data. Any data transmissions interrupted or delayed if the buoy is submerged, are stored and automatically transmitted when the telemetry link is regained.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Ulti-Buoy sampling every 5 minutes was deployed in Lake Washington for a week in late April 2016.The mooring with 9 X-TP Temperature & Tilt sensors was identical to the schematic above showing the depth of each sensor. The data (at right) shows an interesting mixing event that evolved between 22-23 April.

The X-TP can be configured with an optional pressure sensor (up to 100 meters range). Having a pressure sensor at the top and bottom of the chain and a tilt measurement at each sensor makes it possible to calculate the actual depth of each temperature measurement between the two pressure sensors, regardless of changing wire angle caused by currents or wind. Pressure and 3-axis acceleration can also be sampled at up to 50 Hz for short periods (e.g. 10-20 seconds) and transmitted to the surface, enabling periodic sampling of buoy heave and period.  Correlation of temperature structure changes with changes in wave action can give additional insight about what physical processes like surface seiches or internal waves (thermocline seiches) may be underlying mixing events.