AQUAHARMONICS INC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 18a

Description

Ocean observing platforms are currently power and energy constrained and are therefore unable to utilize the benefits of onboard machine learning, high-power consumption sensor packages or long-term deployments. The costs of supporting a remotely located ocean observing platform are prohibitively high due to travel time to, and frequency with which, they require battery recharge and data download. Buoys that rely on solar power to charge the batteries are limited by low cloud cover, daylight, and high latitudes. Hybrid power generating approaches, such as designs that utilize liquid propane are also duration limited. The use of wind turbines on buoys creates sizing and stability issues, and, they tend to self destruct if they contact the ocean surface. They fluctuate in temperature significantly and are difficult to protect from water ingress over time. This project will develop a high-power density, commercially viable, compact, and lightweight WEC for powering end-user ocean observing instrumentation. Phase one will consist of the development of end-user requirements by determining the likely instrumentation power budget and deployment environments of the system based on the selected end-user project partners’ existing instrumentation and deployment environment requirements. The proposed system will be of interest to scientists and regulators who desire to utilize it to characterize the environmental impacts of MHK devices in general, as well as general Ocean Observing tasks. Examples include pre-large scale WEC deployment site monitoring, ocean environment monitoring, tsunami warning systems, NAVY and DoD ocean sensing systems.