A statement from Myriota said the custom sensors would record about 160 bytes each day, including location. This would then be transmitted by Myriota to AIMS' data centre using low-earth orbiting satellites.
Myriota chief executive and co-founder Dr Alex Grant said AIMS was the first organisation to use the sensors for oceanographic tracking.
The South Australia-based Myriota has in the past teamed up with the University of New England and the Australia and New Zealand CRC for Spatial Information to carry out trials of low-cost livestock water tank level monitoring.
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A diagram of an AIMS drifter. Below, right: Myriota co-founders Dr David Haley and Dr Alex Grant.
AIMS tech development team leader Melanie Olsen said the project showed how a cost-effective option existed for obtaining new insights about the oceans.
“Our drifters are now fitted with the next generation of satellite technology, so they can beam data from remote Australian waters back to base in near-real time,” she said.
“The low-cost drifters will enable us to scale up projects on demand, be sustainable and flexible. Because they connect to LEO satellites, they avoid issues like coverage dropouts and connectivity issues that come from using traditional mobile phone networks.”
In future, such devices would enable AIMS to obtain oceanographic information hourly from any location, providing scientists with data essential to understanding the behaviour and changes in oceans.
Olsen said AIMS was excited to implement innovative Internet of Things applications to better connect, collect and exchange data.
“Data is an essential tool if we are to understand how our oceans behave. We need to bring every tool to bear if we are to protect one of our nation’s most precious natural assets, our marine environment,” she said.
Myriota pioneered the Global Sensor Network at UniSA, and AIMS first began testing the devices on its Research Vessel Cape Ferguson in early 2017.
