Real-time echosounder Smart Mooring Deployment

[aslenv]

Greetings all,

We are pleased to share news that our team successfully deployed our first echosounder smart mooring!

Last Friday, ASL Environmental Sciences partnered with West Coast Kelp Ltd to deploy our first Bristlemouth-enabled Smart Mooring at a kelp farm in Barkley Sound, BC. Using the Spotter we received as part of the Bristlemouth Pioneer program, we were able to transmit condensed echosounder data over RS-232 protocol to the bristlemouth node and are currently transmitting data from the Spotter over iridium in 10 minute averaged chunks. We are pinging a calibrated 200 kHz echsounder every 2 seconds and sending a condensed (averaged) profile of those 300 pings per iridium message. Our initial data suggests that our mooring was successfully placed below lines growing Macrocystis sp. We are currently using the Spotter API to transmit data to our own REST server, where we plot the incoming sonar image continuously. You can check out the site location at aqualink: Aqualink

Check out a snippet of the data stream here:

Here’s an example of what the newly seeded Macrocystis looks like:

Here’s a conceptual diagram of the smart mooring:

and finally, all the mooring components together (minus the strain relief lines and 50 lb anchor):

About our team:
ASL Environmental Sciences (www.aslenv.com) is a small, employee owned company specializing in oceanographic, metocean and remote sensing studies, and we manufacture the Acoustic Zooplankton Fish Profiler (AZFP), with new products including the AZFP-nano, a miniature scientific echosounder designed for small moorings, profilers, and autonomous vehicles.

West Coast Kelp Ltd.(www.westcoastkelp.ca) is a leader in kelp cultivation and restoration, proudly operating on Vancouver Island in the traditional territories of the Nu-Chah-Nulth First Nations.

[luk]

Hi @aslenv

Maybe this would be useful for prototyping?

10Base-T1L RPi header with power over data line extension

Hi Bristlemouth Community Some time ago having so called one beer too much I’ve promised that I will make the “ocean project” I was think about Bristlemouth compatible. Well, 4 times more time that I’ve expected later there she is: [header] The 10Base-T1L RPi header with power over data line extension. Still needs a tweak here and there but if someone would have a spare twisted pair cable it would be great to give it a more practical try.

The drawback would be the power consumption: each of those would probably draw around 1W of power (including RPi), also probably a custom buoy would have to be built. On the other hand it probably would be bit easier to try new things and there probably would be more options to connect to the buoy and transfer the data.

[estackpole]

This is really cool! Looking forward to seeing this system deployed with a Spotter. I can already think of other projects that could benefit from your technology so it’s awesome to picture this working with Bristlemouth. Please keep us posted!