Taking care of our data platforms: servicing the E1 buoy

Image caption: The Trinity House Vessel Patricia

The E1 scientific buoy – located 20 nautical miles south of Plymouth – is a collaboration between PML and the UK Met Office, combining meteorological and oceanographical expertise to deliver a state-of-the-art multi-user platform, autonomously collecting atmospheric and in-water measurements in situ. 

Members of PML’s Marine Technology and Autonomy team led by Professor James Fishwick, recently embarked on the Trinity House vessel Patricia to service and upgrade the autonomous E1 scientific buoy.  

The buoy is a key asset of the Western Channel Observatory (WCO), an oceanographic time-series and marine biodiversity reference site in the Western English Channel – and the longest marine dataset in the world.  

Did you know? Data from the WCO is open-access. Access data here >> 

The E1 buoy serves as a cornerstone of the WCO, with over a century of data collected from this station. PML first deployed a buoy here in 2008 and, since 2012, began a collaboration with the Met Office, to integrate their instrumentation for meteorological measurements alongside PML’s sensors for oceanographic measurements. 

Image: The E1 Scientific Buoy 

The Met Office owns the E1 buoy as part of a large network of buoys around the UK, and services these buoys through Trinity House. The Met Office organise a servicing trip to the E1 buoy approximately once per year, and during such trips, a Trinity House Vessel will lift the buoy out of the water and place it on deck for engineers to service. 

The recent operation involved colleagues from both PML and the Met Office working closely aboard the Patricia to ensure the E1 buoy remains fully operational. 

Image caption: Professor James Fishwick (left) with Marine Robotics Technologist Ross Sanders onboard Patricia, with the E1 buoy seen behind the pair. 

Professor James Fishwick – Head of Marine Technology and Autonomy  at PML and leading on the autonomous platforms deployed accross the Western Channel Observatory – describes the delicate operation of lifting the buoy – standing at 7 metres tall and weighing in the region of three tonnes – out of the water to begin maintenance: 

“We boarded the Patricia in Plymouth the afternoon before the planned maintenance, to position ourselves for an early start the following day. It’s always a nice treat to go aboard the Trinity House vessels as we are well looked after!” 

The Trinity House Patricia is a remarkable vessel, at 86m long, it has 34 single cabins, six double cabins, an office, conference room, mess room, four recreation rooms, a gym, and even a helicopter landing pad! 

Image caption: one of the four recreational rooms onboard the Trinity House Patricia 

Professor Fishwick continues: 

“During the trip, we tested our above-water light sensor – which measures sunlight intensity, and we upgraded our command-and-control systems on the buoy, which have been developed in house here at PML.  These control systems are based around an embedded PC, which hosts the necessary software to operate a suite of oceanographic sensors, also managing the power and communications with PML servers.  Power management is very important as the buoy utilises solar panels to generate power so it is more limited.  PML’s L4 buoy for example has three wind turbines combined with a solar array, and the APICS buoy combines solar, wind and a methanol fuel cell.” 

Image caption: Professor Fishwick servicing the E1 buoy 

“We also replaced the communications infrastructure with our new Steatite Wave Relay communications system. This is a high bandwidth, secure mesh network that we have now rolled out across the Western Channel Observatory. This network now connects PML to all of our offshore assets and has facilitated an order of magnitude more data to be sent back to PML ‘live’.” 

Did you know? E1 shares live data through the Western Channel Observatory website here >> 

Images above: Ross Sanders and Prof James Fishwick (on top of, and inside!) the E1 buoy for servicing. 

“Previously we have needed to rely on sophisticated edge processing solutions to process and average data prior to transmission. Since the E1 buoy is 20 nautical miles offshore, it has previously required satellite communications, which is costly and therefore only small text-based data transmissions have been possible. We have now established and tested our new mesh network which has no airtime costs beyond the hardware purchase. This will enable us to transmit full data sets with no cost or transmission issues and provide the potential to add more sophisticated and high data rate sensors such as camera-based systems, as on the APICS (PML’s Automated, in situ Plankton Imaging and Classification System) buoy, in the future.” 

“To finish a successful trip, Ross and I also had the privilege of a full tour of the ship with the captain and chief engineer. We extend our gratitude to both the Met Office for this continued successful partnership, and Trinity House for their hospitability and crucial role in facilitating this operation.” 

E1 scientific buoy – further information: 

Power: 800 Watts of solar charge into an 800 Ah battery bank. 

Communications: Steatite Wave Relay meshed network, which provides high bandwidth connectivity between PML and the buoy. 

In Water Measurements: Sea surface temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll a, turbidity and CDOM. Also, spectral waves. 

Atmospheric Measurements: Met Office weather sensor measuring air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, sunlight intensity. 

Discover more about E1 on the Western Channel Observatory website here >>