Wirewalkers

[09-Aug-18] Dr. Melissa Omand (University of Rhode Island) assembles a Wirewalker, an autonomous platform used to collect high frequency data. The Wirewalker is a vertical profiling instrument package propelled by ocean waves. When attached to a cable, the motion of ocean waves "walks" the Wirewalker to the bottom as it takes continuous samples in the water column. When it reaches the bottom of the path, a release is triggered and the package is returned to the top of the line using its own buoyancy. Typically, this round trip takes about ten minutes to complete and a Wirewalker can make hundreds to thousands of profiles in a single deployment.