Firmware on WII5 — Waves In Ice Buoys

Firmware

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Firmware appears as 3 separate versions. AVR C++ code for origianal buoys and the latest, as we moved back to that for extra long battery life. A 32 bit embedded version for ARM, ESP32 versions, and a Linux Embedded version, originally written for Intel Edison. This page is talking about the first release of code based on AVR.

The AVR Control Code is a set of C++ code that is Arduino-compatible and works on multiple platforms including AVR and ESP32. Almost all the work — battery management, GPS, temperature, IMU, accelerometers, power control, Iridium / satellite control — is done here. This is the heart of the current release.

Other WII Software

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Beyond the pieces already featured under Firmware, Server, Analysis, Viewers, and Onboard Data Processing, the WII project carries a large family of related repositories — earlier buoy generations, dashboards, server tooling, maths libraries, test rigs, and data archives.

None of these have been individually assessed yet, so it’s genuinely unclear which ones can or can’t be released — that’s why they aren’t already public. Some are clean and would be straightforward; others may have licensing, customer-specific identifiers, or third-party dependencies that need looking at first.

WII5

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The WII5 generation is the current production design: AVR/ESP32 main board running the C++ control firmware, with multiple sub-type variants for different deployment profiles.

Sub-type A — placeholder name; rename when the variant is identified.
Sub-type B — placeholder name; rename when the variant is identified.

WII5 Site Launch and First Open-Source Release

Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

May 2026. This site goes live today, and with it the first open-source release of WII5 source material.

What’s public from launch:

Firmware — the AVR / ESP32 C++ control code that runs on every WII5 buoy, now mirrored at gitea.sh3d.com.au/Sh3d/WII5Firmware. The page carries code highlights and deep links into the repository.
Buoys catalog — every generation from WII1 through WII5, plus electronics, enclosures, test equipment, and the onboard data-processing host.
Data — pointer pages to the public Mendeley archives for SIPEX II, PIPERS, and JARE-61, plus the publications bibliography (including the 2014 Nature paper).
History — deployment-by-deployment log going back to the 2014 NIWA work that produced the seminal Nature result.

The rest of the WII repository family — earlier dashboards, servers, maths tooling, test rigs, data archives — is inventoried at Software → Other and is possibly available on request. None of it has been individually assessed for release yet (licensing, customer-specific identifiers, third-party dependencies all need looking at first). If something there sounds useful, ask and we’ll review it.

Firmware

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The buoy firmware (AVR / ESP32 C++) is documented under Buoys → Firmware — that’s where the source repository link and the code highlights live.

This entry exists here so the Software sidebar has a pointer to it, because firmware is software too.

Go to Buoys → Firmware