The Wavescan Second Generation Directional Wave Buoy: from Design Concepts to Field Testing

Abstract

In March 1980 the Continental Shelf Institute (IKU) deployed its first buoy with wave direction measurement capability. This buoy was a result of a joint development by the Christian Michelsens Institute in Bergen and IKU. Since then IKU, latterly the Oceanographic Center, has carried out oceanographic and meteorological measurements with several buoys of this type totalling over 10 years of operations at a number of locations from the tropics to the high Arctic. Operating these buoys in remote areas can be very expensive and IKU saw the need for bringing the data collection costs down. One way of reducing the cost is to increase the maximum operational period for the data buoy and thereby reduce the number of expensive field cruises to a minimum. In order to achieve this without reduction in data recovery it is a requirement that the measurement process be carefully monitored.