On May 2, the installation of a Simrad WBAT – Wideband Autonomous Transceiver in the HarshLab laboratory of TECNALIA Research & Innovation, located in the BiMEP Biscay Marine Energy Platform, was successfully carried out by a team of AZTI in collaboration with the Materials for Extreme Conditions group of Tecnalia.
The Simrad WBAT is a programmable, fully integrated echo sounder system for long-term deployment in marine and freshwater environments. A Simrad autonomous EK system consists of the WBAT, a software for mission planning, and one or more wideband transducers. The echo sounder part of the WBAT unit is built upon the WBT transceiver used in the EK80, with features such as wideband capability (30-500 kHz), 4 independent channels that can be used in split or single beam configurations.
The aim of this system is to monitor for at least two months (May and June 2023) the possible effect of fish aggregation beneath a floating device. In this case, the HarshLAb will work as a model of a Wave Energy Device (WEC) due to its similarities in dimensions and mooring systems to WECs previously installed in BiMEP. These measures will complement those made before with the autonomous surface drone, ITSASDRONE of AZTI in August 2022 (https://lnkd.in/d2kbmTTp).
All these tasks are within the framework of WP2 of the SafeWAVE project, which aim is to collect, process, analyse and share environmental data collected at sites where devices are operating.
HarshLab laboratory website 👉 https://harshlab.eu/
