Liquid Robotics / Newsletter / May 2012

Making Waves

Innovative Liquid Robotics and Sonardyne Technology Deployed in the Gulf of Maine.

In a joint project with NERACOOS, U.S. IOOS, the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences, and Sonardyne, Inc. a Wave Glider has been launched near Monhegan Island in the Gulf of Maine. Over a period of 6 to 8 weeks it will collect information on water conditions in the Gulf of Maine, including temperature, salinity, and wave height. Two of Sonardyne’s long-life subsea sensor logging nodes, called Fetch, have been deployed onto the seafloor, from where they will make regular subsea measurements using their onboard suite of environmental sensors. When requested to do so, the stored data will be transmitted wirelessly up to the Wave Glider for onward transmission via a satellite link to the shore for near-realtime assessment. This project demonstrates how the combination of Fetch and Wave Glider technologies can expand the spatial and temporal resolution of the installed Ocean Observing System. After the initial deployment in the Gulf of Maine is completed, the Wave Glider will transit to waters off the mid-Atlantic for additional missions, including tsunami detection.

NERACOOS Executive Director, Dr. Ru Morrison said “We are really excited to participate in the testing of new technologies like the Wave Glider and Fetch nodes that could provide a cost effective way to collect ocean information over large areas. The information these technologies can provide will help us better understand and predict what is happening in our coastal waters and could improve our ability to predict events like red tides.“

Read the Portland Herald article

Connect

Get Product Information

Discuss Your Project

Request a Quote

PacX Challenge

Events

AUVSI's Unmanned Systems
North America 2012

Las Vegas, NV
August 6 - 9, 2012

Video

Oceans of Robots

On April 12, 2012, Liquid Robotics’ Ed Lu presented “Oceans of Robots” at the TEDxSF event, Big Blue. Hear his stories on observing the oceans from space and how the Wave Glider is helping the world instrument our oceans. If you enjoy the YouTube video, please “like” it. Thanks!

By the Numbers

$50k

BP’s Research Grant for the PacX Challlenge grand prize winner. Submit your abstracts by 7/17/12.

Learn more

From Our Partners

In a recent collaboration between Liquid Robotics, BioSonics, and Cornell University, the Wave Glider was adapted to carry active echosounders from BioSonics to collect fisheries acoustics data. A series of trials were conducted south of Liquid Robotics’ Puako testing facility in Kawaihae Harbor, Hawaii, to detect the mesopelagic boundary community's offshore to onshore and upward vertical migration. With its near-silent operation and persistent, steady propulsion, the Wave Glider proved to be an ideal platform for long-term fisheries studies with BioSonics echosounders.

Data sheet | White paper

Focus on Technology

Liquid Robotics pilots using WGMS at piloting HQ

Wave Glider Management System Enhancements

WGMS, the Wave Glider Management System is Liquid Robotics’ hosted tool for managing your Wave Gliders, from setup and configuration, to piloting and accessing data. WGMS is now at version 4.0.4 and we are proud to announce significant enhancements in terms of usability and security.

Improved Security
There have been important security enhancements to the way that user credentials are handled and stored, including available two-factor authentication for users. As part of our commitment to providing the most secure service possible, we have engaged Avantica to provide ongoing security evaluation, including white-box testing.

Scripting is Here
As of release 4.0.3 you can now author and save scripts to automate common, complex, and time-consuming or repetitive tasks in WGMS. These tasks can range from setting up new sensors to work with your Wave Glider, to generating routes, to automating piloting tasks—especially handy when managing multiple Wave Gliders in areas with dense traffic. Liquid Robotics is in the process of developing a library of scripts for common tasks that will be available to all users of hosted WGMS. Since the system uses JavaScript, you can easily check your code using a range of browser debugging tools.

Cranking It Up to 3
With the latest release of WGMS we have migrated to Google Maps API level 3. This change marks a significant improvement in the speed and usability of WGMS, and brings it up to date with the latest Google Maps API. One of the many benefits to this update is that WGMS now aggregates AIS markers in densely trafficked areas into clusters, allowing maps to be redrawn much faster. WGMS will retain compatibility with the level 2 API, until it is phased out by Google.

Find out more about WGMS

Say Hello to Howard

Howard Dratler, new Exectuive Vice President of Global Sales

Howard Dratler, new Executive Vice President of Global Sales

Liquid Robotics is pleased to announce that Howard Dratler joined us as Executive Vice President of Global Sales last month. Reporting directly to CEO Bill Vass, Howard has been tasked with developing a world-class, trusted, and responsive sales organization, to the benefit of our customers and partners.

A seasoned technology industry sales executive, Howard has more than 25 years of experience across a wide range of disciplines including storage, content management, data warehousing, SaaS and the Cloud.

We’d like to invite you to have a conversation with Howard about your business and explore how we can help you. If you’re a current customer, we’d be delighted to hear from you to learn what’s working and where we can improve.

Press Release (PDF) | Email Howard

PacX Challenge Update

PacX Wave Glider launched off the coast of Hawaii

Back in Action

Around mid-May and after a little R&R in Hawai’I, the PacX Wave Gliders, Benjamin, Papa Mau, Fontaine and Piccard, will continue their world record journey to Japan and Australia. Traveling across the high seas over the Mariana Trench and the Equator, the brave robots will transmit near real time ocean data on water conductivity, temperature, depth, dissolved oxygen, weather data, wave height & direction, chlorophyll, oil flourescense, and water temperature as well as transmitting photos from their onboard cameras.

All of the data is provided free to registrants. If you are interested in competing for the PacX Challenge Prize ($50,000 research grant and 6 months of free Wave Glider data services), you must submit your abstract by 7/17/12.

PacX on the web