Concept for a New Ocean-Monitoring Buoy Design

The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) operates an extensive fleet of moored buoys in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans off North America, off Hawaii,and in the Great Lakes. The buoys provide automated environmental observations for use in weather analysis and forecasting. Low-power, electronic payloads on the buoys acquire, process, and transmit hourly data to shore via the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) system. As the buoy array has grown, the number of observations has dramatically increased. At the same time, performance has improved, so that today the overall network data reliability exceeds 85 percent. Recently, efforts at NDBC were aimed at reducing costs while maintaining performance standards. An example is the development of the Value Engineered Environmental Payload (VEEP), a high-capability system with an acquisition cost half that of its predecessor. Another example is the inexpensive 3-meter buoy hull, for which a broad range of capabilities has been demonstrated. It is possible to conceive of another buoy design aimed at providing substantial operational savings through an extended deployment duration, perhaps of 4 to 6 years. This new buoy would be configured for ease of at-sea maintenance and will carry dual payloads for reliability. The engineering approach involved in the development of the new buoy concept is outlined in this paper.