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Design of a mobile coastal communications buoy

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Ocean Engineering, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-72). / In response to a growing interest in networked communications at sea as well as the needs of our vital commercial fishing industry, the Northeast Consortium funded a novel research initiative to establish wireless acoustic and radio communications at sea. The platform used for this type of telemetry instrumentation was to be a buoy which could not only withstand the often harsh conditions off the northeastern coast of America (specifically, Cape Ann), but do so while exhibiting an exceptionally small response in heave and roll. A spar type buoy was designed and built at the MIT Sea Grant facility. Spars are a special type of buoy shape whose hydrostatic and hydrodynamic interactions with the sea are decoupled enough so that extreme sea conditions do not induce extreme buoy motions. Most oceanographic buoys are of the discus type, and move as the surface of the ocean does. This type of wave-following buoy would not sufficiently facilitate the requirements of the high-bandwidth wireless networking hardware, and therefore would not serve the current purpose. / (cont.) The NEC buoy displaces approximately 140 kg of sea water and is roughly 11 feet long when fully assembled, not including its 5 foot antenna mast. The buoy employs a PC104 stack to control an 802.1 lb wireless card and antenna, an acoustic modem card and transducer, other peripheral instrumentation, a main battery, and a solar power system. / by Meghan Hendry-Brogan. / S.M.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33584
Date January 2004
CreatorsHendry-Brogan, Meghan
ContributorsChryssostomos Chryssostomidis., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Ocean Engineering., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Ocean Engineering.
PublisherMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Source SetsM.I.T. Theses and Dissertation
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format80 leaves, 5414175 bytes, 5417466 bytes, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf
RightsM.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

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