History on WII5 — Waves In Ice Buoys

Korea Polar Research Institute 2024

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Eleven-buoy deployment with the Korea Polar Research Institute starting 1 March 2024 (project id kopri). Details, ship, location, retrievals, and photos to follow.

TWK5 Canada 2019–2021

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Two-buoy deployment in Canadian waters starting 1 December 2019 and running through 2021 (project id twk5). Details, ship, location, retrievals, and photos to follow.

TAS 2019 to 2022

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Fourteen-buoy deployment running through Tasmanian waters from 1 July 2019 through 2022 (project id tas2019). One of the longest-running WII5 projects to date. Details, ship, location, retrievals, and photos to follow.

Melbourne University 2018

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Single-buoy deployment with the University of Melbourne starting 1 November 2018 (project id unimelb2018). Details, ship, location, retrievals, and photos to follow.

Japan 2018

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Three-buoy deployment in Japan starting 26 March 2018 (project id japan2018). Details, ship, location, retrievals, and photos to follow.

NIWA 2017

Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Fourteen-buoy deployment with NIWA (New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) starting 1 April 2017 (project id niwa2017).

This was the Intel Edison all-in-one Linux generation: the buoy ran everything — sensor capture, GPS, Iridium, scheduling — on a single Edison module running Linux. No AVR companion CPU. The Edison was chosen for its small form factor and reasonable power profile at the time; it later became the limiting factor (Intel discontinued the Edison line) and prompted the move back to AVR for WII5.

NYU UAE 2017

Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Two-buoy deployment with NYU UAE (New York University Abu Dhabi) starting 1 April 2017 (project id nyuuae). Details, ship, location, retrievals, and photos to follow.

Japan 2016

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Two-buoy deployment in Japan starting 9 September 2016 (project id japan2016). Details, ship, location, retrievals, and photos to follow.

NIWA Test 2016

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Internal NIWA test deployment (project id niwatest2016). Zero buoys recorded — appears to be a system test rather than a real deployment.

The dashboard records a deployment date of 13/05/2026, which looks like a placeholder default rather than a real date. Verify and correct when the deployment story is written up.

Internal Test Deployment

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Internal test deployment (project id test2016), two buoys. Not a real-world deployment — used for testing the server and dashboards.

The dashboard records a deployment date of 13/05/2026, which looks like a placeholder default rather than a real date.

Scott Base Testing 2014

Sat, 01 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

NIWA-led field testing of the WII2 sensor board at Scott Base, Antarctica — November 2014. The trip exercised the second-generation buoy hardware end-to-end before any open-water deployment.

Hardware under test:

Sparton inclinometer for orientation
MPU9150 IMU (accelerometer / gyroscope / magnetometer)
Kistler high-precision accelerometer for wave motion
Venus GPS for position and timing
Iridium 9602 / 9522B SBD modems for telemetry
Sampling at 2–8 Hz to SD card, with periodic SBD transmission

The WII2 firmware tree that drove this trial is documented under Software → Other → WII2_Board. The campaign sat between WII1 (the original 2012 buoy) and the WII3 generation that followed.

NIWA 2012 — Original Deployment (Nature 2014)

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The seminal NIWA deployment: eight WII buoys sent into the Antarctic sea ice in 2012, collecting the first digital sea-ice wave-motion measurements ever made. The data they returned became the basis for the project’s headline publication two years later:

Kohout A. L., Williams M., Dean S., et al. (2014). Storm-induced sea-ice breakup and the implications for ice extent. Nature, 509, 604–607.