This is one of our toys at work. Its an autonomous water profiler. It sits on a floating platform with a solar panel, battery bank, computer (with a cell stick), weather station, and an array of water instruments in a stainless steel cage attached to a winch. The computer lowers the instruments into the water for about four or five minutes once an hour, to five different depths, and measures the properties of the water there. Sadly, everything you see here, on B3, is now on the bottom of the Hudson River, or even more likely, swept out to sea. We had no sooner deployed it than it got hit by Hurricane Irene in late August of 2011. Something came down the Mohawk River above Crescent Dam, snagged it, and pushed it down to the dam. It teetered on the edge for about three hours, still recording data, then got pushed over the edge, never to be seen again except by the fishes. Other than its trip over the dam, it would have survived just about anything. It was very well balanced, with about five tons of flotation, and only a half ton of load.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 20:38:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015