Data & multi-payload buoys.
You have already built a hull, a mooring, a power supply and a reporting link for navigation. Deploying a separate monitoring buoy means buying all four again — and maintaining them again.
One hull, two duties.
A navigation buoy already provides everything a monitoring station needs: a stable hull, a calculated mooring, solar power and a data link that is already running. Adding sensors on top of that costs far less at the margin than commissioning a separate monitoring buoy.
The maintenance saving is even clearer. Inspection, fouling removal and battery replacement are trips you were making anyway — the payload adds a few minutes alongside, not another sortie.
One constraint matters: a payload changes the hull's centre of gravity, power draw and windage. The payload has to be calculated together with hull size, ballast and power supply — it is not something to bolt onto buoys already on station.
Three common payload groupsCombine to requirement — there is no need to fit everything.
Hydrological
Water level, current speed and direction, water temperature. The most commonly specified group on inland and canal projects, feeding directly into traffic management.
Meteorological
Wind speed and direction, air temperature and pressure, visibility. Coastal and bridge areas care most about visibility and wind.
Water quality
Turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH and similar routine indicators, for environmental monitoring and water protection projects.
Available sensor models, ranges and accuracies depend on project requirements and supply chain — list to be confirmed. Our approach is to fix which values you need, at what interval and to what accuracy, then work backwards to payload and power.
Parameters to fix together
| Hull | Based on UHMWPE or metal hulls, resized for payload mass and centre of gravity |
|---|---|
| AtoN function | Full navigation function retained — shape, colour, topmark and lantern per the IALA system |
| Payload | To be completed: available sensors, ranges and accuracies |
| Power | Solar, sized for navigation load plus payload consumption combined (capacity to be confirmed) |
| Reporting | Shares the telemetry link; intervals configurable per data type |
| Mooring | Recalculated for the loaded hull — not carried over from a standard buoy |
| Standards | To be completed: the standards the company manufactures and tests to |
Usually specified together
Want monitoring on your navigation buoys?Start with which values you actually need.
Send the parameters to be measured, sampling interval and accuracy requirement, plus the water conditions. We will size payload, power and hull together before quoting.