During wave measurements in Durban, South Africa, Radermacher and Thackeray lost contact with their conventional buoy. “Those buoys are so expensive that it is worth a helicopter trip to search for it,” Radermacher explained. “As buoys float in the open sea, it is hard to supervise them and theft and damage are all too common.” Thakeray then wondered why these buoys are overpriced, while the sensors needed can simply be found in your pocket. Using Radermacher’s knowledge on ocean wave theories and software, they together developed a buoy which is ten times cheaper than its conventional counterpart.
Years of research and development in the smartphone industry have resulted in accurate, reliable and most of all cheap sensors. While normally used to turn the screen or navigate, apparently they are suitable for wave data collection as well. By using the accelerometer and gyroscope in the smartphone, the buoy measures the height, direction and period of waves. The strength of WaveDroid lies within applications close to shore. It allows, for example, harbours to inform ship transport and coastal engineers to predict coastal erosion. The first commercial pilots have already been conducted with a Dutch dredging company and WaveDroid buoys are now tested in Myanmar, France, the Netherlands and El Salvador.
Comments are closed.