Smart buoy developments and technologies applied in Cyprus
Climate and environmental blind spots of sea water raised an alarm decades ago. Although sea monitoring started years ago, the information was not sufficient to allow sea status, evaluation of climate change, early warnings for water contamination or other marine hazards, and sustainable resource management. The advancements in underwater sensor technologies, wireless communication systems, and data analytics platforms have recently given us the opportunity to develop smart buoys to address the aforementioned challenges. Smart buoys are transforming the way we observe and understand the ocean by providing near real-time information of areas far from the coast. Smart buoy technologies represent the evolvement of several disciplines, such as ocean engineering, environmental monitoring, and innovation of electronics and digital technologies. Some of the remarkable technological achievement for smart buoys are the uninterrupted wireless communication, energy autonomy through solar systems, and integration of edge computing for onboard processing of data, energy management, and alerting system. The applications span diverse sectors, including climate research, aquaculture management, coastal protection, maritime safety, and decision-making supporting processes with reliable and accurate data. The lecture focus on completed smart buoys deployed in Cyprus. It includes details of smart buoys for monitoring the physical and chemical parameters to identify the metocean changes, for measuring chemical and biological parameters that observe the biodiversity or may harm the ecosystem, and for evaluating seawater currents and waves for preventing erosion or graduate damage to underwater structures.