Description:
Summary: A low-cost beacon based on less data intensive satellite transmission, or cell phone based network for highly populated coastal areas or enclosed estuaries, does not currently exist in the market, and would have a broad interest by scientists deploying moored instrumentation in coastal habitats. Needed features for a coastal mooring beacon include: surfacing detection; fast satellite data acquisition and transmission; extended battery life; waterproofing; and ruggedized design. Developing a low-cost beacon for the recovery of coastal mooring packages would open the market for coastal research project
Project Goals: There is a need for a low-cost beacon for the recovery of coastal, often shallow, research moorings. Typical offshore oceanographic moorings are instrumented with expensive equipment and the addition of a satellite beacon for their recovery is justified. However, these beacon's cost range is in the order of several thousand dollars (e.g., $3000 to $8000), which make them not affordable for smaller budget coastal projects, where the total cost of mooring packages is lower.
