Design of a Sailing Spar Buoy (SSB) instrument platform
Abstract
Support is requested to continue development of a new, autonomous, wind-propelled oceanographic instrument platform to facilitate fu ture study of air-sea interaction and upper-ocean processes. The concept, provisionally named the Sailing Spar Buoy, SSB, represents an extension of the WHOI-developed, free-drifting spar buoy X-Spar (that has been funded in part by the ONR NISKINe project). Once operational, SSB systems will be shipped to staging ports in 20-foot containers and assembled there, launched and guided out of har bor by small boat, sail themselves to designated study regions, conduct sustained observations of air-sea interaction and upper ocea n processes (telemetering data in real time to shore-based investigators), reposition as necessary, and at mission end, sail back to port for recovery, sensor recalibration and refurbishment. Here a 2-year design effort is proposed, culminating in a set of detail ed schematics, drawings, and code for the system (with an accurate cost estimate for full-scale construction), and some scale model testing of the system; a follow-on project will build full-sized prototypes and conduct field trials.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 07, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112871
Entities
People
- John Toole
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution