Ocean Monitoring Systems, Oceanographic Instruments
OSI Weather Instruments Used in Ocean Applications Since 1985, OSI (Optical Scientific Inc) has been a leader in the design and manufacture of advanced electro-optical sensors and systems for measuring various weather parameters. A number of these instruments are designed for use at sea, including:
ORG-815 (Optical Rain Gauge)
APG-815 (All Precipitation Gauge)
OWI-430 (Optical Weather Identifier)
OWI-650 (Optical Weather Identifier for low power application)
These optical weather instruments are all recommended for use in ocean environments. A paper “Taking Rain Gauges to Sea” published in Sea Technology magazine describes the details of the theory and test results for the OSi ORG-815 as used in oceanography applications. Although the paper was written specifically with reference to the ORG-815, it is just as applicable to all the other instruments in this family. These instruments are widely used in ocean environments including on data buoys and on shipboard. Several examples are presented as follows:
An earlier version of ORG on a NOAA data buoy deployed in Gulf of Mexico
ORG sensor were installed on NOAA’s data buoys deployed around the equator over the Pacific Ocean as part of the TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission) project. ORGs were also deployed on many NOAA and NASA research ships in the Pacific Ocean.
Several buoys with OWI-650 are now in use in the hostile environment of the North Atlantic. Woodplc is the company installing the OWI-650 on their 3m Discus series buoys. The buoy with OWI-650 is then placed into service to monitor a number of meteorological conditions including visibility, precipitation and present weather – the three of which are provided by the OWI-650. Woodplc states “The OWI-650 performed extremely well in the North Atlantic over the past few years”.
