OSIL, URI Collaborate on Research Project

The University of Rhode Island (URI) had a recent requirement for two oceanographic buoy systems and land-based deck unit for ongoing oceanographic research under the Rhode Island Consortium for Coastal Ecology Assessment Innovation & Modeling (RI-CAIM), a five-year grant program funded by the National Science Foundation (Award #OIA-1655221). 

Researchers have requested systems that can use a new array of sensors and equipment, called the integrated Bay Observatory, that has already been acquired by URI through RI C-AIM.  The data from this platform will be sent back to a computer system hosted at URI’s Bay Campus and parsed to a networked database, RI C-AIM’s Rhode Island Data Discovery Center, for real-time or near-real time data display. This database would operate within a suitable software system that would allow users to change settings or trigger samplers remotely (using either programmed interval sampling, or manually triggered by a user). OSIL have an established reputation for providing fully integrated systems that consistently deliver high quality data to the end user in practical formats.

OSIL are providing two of its 1.2m Tern Buoys for the project, tough and durable systems that can withstand the harshest of conditions and are ideal for extended coastal monitoring deployments. The Tern buoy hull design incorporates a stainless steel sub frame with a moon pool for instrument protection, and its modular manufacture makes the buoy easy to ship and assemble on-site following delivery. The buoy frame design has also been modified to allow an autonomous water sampler system to be connected to the bottom of the buoys.

The buoys are to be deployed year-round in Narragansett Bay, while the land-based deck unit is to be housed in a permanent monitoring station set up within a disused lighthouse.  All systems will host a range of SeaBird sensors in addition to a full suite of meteorological instruments and GPS tracking fitted to the data buoys.