Biological Sensor System

We've been working 'round the clock in preparation of our trip to Malta and Sicily! A lot of progress has been made recently. We have now purchased a sensor system from Onset, a US company based out of Cape Cod. We were originally considering another system, but the Onset solution saved us about $200. Another major perk of this system is that we are expecting to have it at Cal Poly in approximately 9 days; so we will have time to acquaint ourselves with the system prior to actually deploying it in Malta.

Above is a picture of the sensor. It measures temperature and conductivity, which is easily converted to salinity. Measurements can be taken in arbitrary intervals between 1 sec and 18 hrs, configurable through the base station (described below). The sensor is rated to withstand depths of up to 70m, which more than meets our needs, given that our tether is only 40m long. Conductivity measurements are reported with a resolution of 2 uS/cm3, providing a great amount of detail. Temperature data is reported with 0.01 degree Celsius resolution, giving great detail there, as well.

The data collected by the sensor is all stored internal, with sufficient memory to hold 18,500 temperature and conductivity measurements between dumps to the base station.

Pictured above is the USB base station required to interface the datalogger with a PC. The set of included adapters provides the option for adding capabilities in the future through the addition of more sensors and dataloggers.

Once the datalogger is connected through the USB base station, the Onset software (pictured above) can be used to easily visualize, capture, and/or export the data. A variety of plots and graphs can be automatically generated in the software. Data can also be tabulated and exported as *.txt, *.xls, or *.csv files.

As I said before, we are expecting delivery of this system in approximately a week and a half. I'm very eager to begin testing the system and learning the interfaces. More updates to follow!