Ideas for an ocean rover?

[Artlav]

For a while i had an itch to build something like a space probe. A remotely operated, mobile device located in some interesting environment.
Problem is, any place with communications would have human erosion (stealing of the device), so the itch never quite went anywhere.

However, i recently found that there are relatively cheap Iridium satellite modems available these days, and the idea solidified.
A buoy kind of a device, free-floating on ocean currents. Solar powered, with a satellite modem and some sensors.

So, the question is - what sort of sensors would be worthwhile to put on such a buoy?
Is there a way to measure plastic mist content of the water?
Is there a waterproof way to measure temperature, pressure, wind speed?
Would it make sense to measure background radiation levels?
Something else?

Basically, given such a buoy what sort of sensor would you have put on it?
The data balance is on the order of one kb per day (the price is about $1/kb, and the thing should hopefully last for a year or two).

[DTJ]

Read about Argos sensors.

They are pretty cool. IIRC there area a few thousand roaming the worlds oceans autonomously. They travel up and down the water column taking different measurements temp/pressure/conductivity/pH + GPS etc and report it back via satellite link when they reach the surface.


http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/How_Argo_floats.html

[chicken]

Check out this guy if you haven't already.
http://mdbuoyproject.wixsite.com/default

Basically a floating Arduino with an assortment of Adafruit boards. His Atlantic buoy is underway for more than a year now.

I think sensors to detect wave height and wind speeds would be interesting.

[chicken]

And here's an alternative approach that used 30m amateur radio band for communication and a few pounds of batteries for power.
http://www.qsl.net/zl1rs/oceanfloater.html

[rstofer]

Check out this guy if you haven't already.
http://mdbuoyproject.wixsite.com/default

Basically a floating Arduino with an assortment of Adafruit boards. His Atlantic buoy is underway for more than a year now.

I think sensors to detect wave height and wind speeds would be interesting.

It's been done and done a LONG time ago.  When I worked for an aerospace company back in the very early '70s, there was a group we called the Buoy Group and every day one of their people was in the computer room plotting out wave heights and wind speed.  I think they also measured salinity.

Long before GPS, long before much of anything, actually.  I never asked questions about the project or anything else.  I was lucky to be allowed access, no point in pushing my luck.