Design, Testing and Results Analysis of Sea Surface Wave Height Instrument Measurement

Ocean wave is one of the important parameter that affects the dynamic of the coastal. Ocean monitoring that provides real-time data are needed to help better understand of the ocean. The objectives of this study are designing and constructing an instrument to measure the wave height. The instrument was designed by using accelerometer sensor and it was placed on a buoy to follow the water particle movement on the sea surface. Electronics system used was ATmega32 microcontroller as the main control of this instrument. Data from the sensors were stored on the MMC/SD card. MATLAB software was used to analyse the data by using zero crossing method to get the wave properties. The instrument measured at one fixed point by mooring system. This instrument had undergone fields test in Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi and was moored at 8 meters depth. Data analysis in 22 hours recording in location showed that the average wave height was 0.72 meters; the significant wave height (Hsig) was 1.32 meters and the maximum wave height (Hmax) was 2.58 meters.In conclusion, the wave buoy instrument that we have developed and tested showed that it work well as intended in measuring wave height, and the measured data can be further analyzed.