Product: RockBLOCK
Keeping Flood Monitoring Data Flowing When It Matters Most
Green Stream Technologies provides real time flood monitoring systems that help communities, agencies, and infrastructure operators detect rising water, monitor rainfall and weather conditions, and respond quickly to flood risk. Its solution brings together rugged sensor kits, autonomous solar power, secure cloud services, dashboards, alerts, APIs, integrations, field services, training, and ongoing support.
The Challenge
For flood monitoring to be useful, data has to get through. A water level reading, rainfall measurement, or field image can support decisions during a fast moving event, but only if it reaches the right people in time.
Many of the locations that need monitoring are rural, coastal, or riverside sites where cellular coverage can be limited. Even where LTE is normally available, severe weather can disrupt terrestrial networks during the events these systems are designed to track. Green Stream needed a communications approach that could work across different environments, while balancing cost, reliability, latency, and operational risk.
The Solution
Green Stream uses a site-by-site telemetry strategy. Where LTE coverage is strong, cellular is often the most cost effective option. In remote areas with little or no cellular coverage, Iridium can act as the primary communications path. For mission critical sites, especially in flood-prone areas where storms may affect cellular networks, Green Stream can pair LTE with Iridium failover.
That flexibility helps Green Stream match the connectivity method to the site. It also reflects a deliberate choice. Flood monitoring depends on high resolution, real time data that customers can act on. Some emerging LEO satellite options can be lower cost, but may require waiting for a satellite pass. For flash flooding, a two- or three-hour reporting gap is not good enough. Iridium gives Green Stream global coverage and the ability to report every five minutes, with no missed reporting windows.
Using Ground Control’s RockBLOCK devices, Green Stream can add Iridium connectivity to monitoring stations beyond the reach of terrestrial networks, from rural riverbanks to coastal plains and other high impact locations.
The Service Evolution
Green Stream first used RockBLOCK 9603, based on Iridium Short Burst Data (SBD), to send compact reports from remote monitoring sites. For many applications, that was enough: small packets of data covering water levels, rainfall, device status, and network health.
As its deployments evolved, Green Stream began moving to RockBLOCK 9704 and RockBLOCK Plus 9704, which use Iridium Messaging Transport (IMT). The difference is significant. RockBLOCK 9603 messages are measured in hundreds of bytes; RockBLOCK 9704 supports messages up to 100KB.
That larger message size creates room for richer reporting. Water level data remains central to flood monitoring, but Green Stream can now look at adding more context, including images from the field. During a flood event, imagery can help emergency managers see what conditions look like on the ground, not just read what a sensor is reporting.
The Result
Satellite connectivity helps Green Stream reduce operational risk, especially in remote or high impact locations where site visits can be difficult, slow, or unsafe.
During severe weather, continuity of data becomes especially important. By using Iridium through Ground Control’s RockBLOCK devices, Green Stream can offer an added layer of resilience for sites where communications failure would have the greatest impact.
This matters as Green Stream expands into more rural and underserved areas. These communities may face serious flood risk, but lack dependable cellular coverage. Satellite connectivity helps make early warning systems practical in places that would otherwise be harder to monitor.
“We chose Ground Control because it provided a fast and straightforward path to integrating Iridium into our systems, which was important for getting a satellite solution to market quickly. The platform is intuitive and well documented, and our Account Manager, Elonda, has been knowledgeable and responsive, which has made the partnership easy to work with.”
Karen Lindquist, Green Stream
Looking Ahead
Green Stream is continuing to scale as more communities look for better ways to manage flood risk. Its approach – start with a pilot, then expand to a wider network – gives customers a practical path from initial deployment to broader flood intelligence systems.
As those networks grow, satellite connectivity will help Green Stream reach more sites, support more resilient deployments, and feed local data into regional or state-level systems for emergency management.
Let’s connect your next deployment
Green Stream’s flood monitoring network is one example of how satellite IoT can help critical data keep moving when cellular coverage is limited, unreliable, or at risk of disruption.
If you’re developing an IoT solution for remote, mobile, or mission critical environments, Ground Control can help you assess your options and build a connectivity approach that fits your application, budget, and growth plans.
Complete the form or email hello@groundcontrol.com and we’ll reply within one working day.
Smart Satellite Buoys Reducing Ghost Gear and Protecting Oceans
Founded in 2015, Blue Ocean Gear set out to solve a challenge for fishermen: around 10% of fishing gear is lost annually in many fisheries, estimated in 2019 to weigh about 640,000 tonnes. This has two serious impacts: the first is the economic penalty; crab traps, for example, can cost $1,000 – $2,000 each, and are often lashed together in strings of 40 or more traps; losing these traps could cost some fishermen their livelihoods.
The second is the environmental impact. The lost fishing gear continues to fish, while never harvested; it attracts females and juveniles, and off-target species, all of which die in the trap, attracting more species to become captured, and more wasteful fish deaths. There’s also the potential for gear to entangle birds, turtles, whales and dolphins; a 2020 report from the World Wildlife Fund notes that abandoned and lost fishing gear threatens around two thirds of marine animals, including all sea turtle species and half of seabirds.
Blue Ocean Gear developed a data buoy which acts like a sort of maritime air tag; fully waterproof and depth-rated, it’s easily attached to fishing gear, and its internal sensors track its location, movement and depth.
The combination of these sensors tells fishermen whether the gear is entangled or being dragged by a boat, for example; or if it’s vanished underwater due to currents, the buoys can alert the fishermen when it surfaces so they can retrieve it and harvest the catch, saving them valuable time and fuel on the water.
The buoys also help detect and prevent poaching, with a sensor sending an alert to a connected app to tell the owner of the gear when it’s in or out of the water; if it’s unexpectedly out of the water, that’s a good indication that the catch is being poached.
Blue Ocean Gear worked, and continues to work, very closely with fishermen to deliver a device that meets all of their needs: all of the electronics are protected internally; there’s no on/off switch; it’s extremely robust, and can withstand extreme weather conditions. On the software side of things, the fishermen can decide for themselves how frequently they need which data sets, again using the app.
The buoys can communicate to a similar device on the vessel via radio link, but for fixed gear such as traps, most of the time the fishing vessel is not nearby, and that’s where Ground Control comes in.
Ground Control delivers satellite IoT connectivity, connecting very remote things, and has worked with Blue Ocean Gear since their pilot phase to ensure that they, and their connected customers, can retrieve their data in real time from any location on Earth.
The buoys utilize Iridium Short Burst Data, which sends data in small packets; this is an extremely efficient way to utilize satellite communication, making it cost effective and power economical, while still delivering the close-to-real time, truly global, two way communication that Blue Ocean Gear’s customers need.
Although fishermen remain central to Blue Ocean Gear’s work, their ability to collect ocean data hasn’t gone unnoticed by the scientific and research communities, and they’ve expanded their capabilities to meet the needs of scientists and offshore wind developers, for example. In addition to the temperature measurements available now, in Q1 2026, they’re adding air pressure and wave data sensors to the buoys, which substantially grows the number of applications for which they can be used.
“For our customers, having data all the time is key, whether they’re working in the Arctic, Antarctic or anywhere in between. Ground Control’s connectivity has been extremely reliable, and it was very easy to integrate with our systems. Cloudloop gives us the cost monitoring and API access we need for billing, and the support has been just wonderful throughout the many years we’ve worked together.”
Kortney Opshaug, CEO, Blue Ocean Gear
Beyond asset tracking and fishing, Blue Ocean Gear’s applications are growing rapidly, with huge potential for deployment across many different ocean industries. Collecting data from the ocean has traditionally been hard, expensive and complex; together, Blue Ocean Gear and Ground Control are helping to bridge that gap, delivering more data points in an easy, accessible and low cost way.
Let’s Connect Your Next Ocean Project
Projects like Blue Ocean Gear show what’s possible when rugged hardware, smart software and always-on connectivity come together. At Ground Control, we help organizations turn ambitious ideas into dependable, real world solutions, from tracking critical assets at sea to unlocking hard to reach environmental data.
If you’re working on an oceans, environmental monitoring or remote IoT initiative and need a connectivity partner who understands the challenges off the edge of the map, we’d love to talk. Fill in the form, or email hello@groundcontrol.com, and a member of our team will help you explore the best options for your project.
Epsom College are competing in The Microtransat challenge and are trying to build a robot boat that can sail from England to America autonomously.
It has been attempted approximately 25 times by Universities, Businesses and Individuals; however, it has never been completed.
Ground Control’s RockBLOCK 9602 is being used to send back telemetry data from anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Every hour it provides Latitude, Longitude, Battery Voltages, Temperatures inside the electronics bays and sends a ‘Mayday’ if water is detected in the hull. Each update is forwarded to a PHP script that easily stores the information in a SQL database, updates Twitter, and places a marker on a rolling map on their website.
The Challenge Ahead
The Microtransat Challenge was launched in 2005 to stimulate the development of fully autonomous model sailing boats capable of crossing the Atlantic in an east-west or west-east direction. To date, none of the 12 Microtransat attempts has been successful. In July 2016 the Epsom College team aimed be the first to succeed where many have failed.
The boat is a GRP hull based on a J-Class racer. We own the mould and so can try again if this boat fails. It is 1.8M long, and weighs 10-15kg depending on its ballast. The ship uses a student programmed navigation system that uses GPS and a magnetic digital compass. The boat updates its location using the Iridium Satellite Network and a Ground Control RockBLOCK 9602 board. In the first week it will update every hour, then drop back to every six hours.
Our server runs scripts that save key data in a database, uploads to Twitter and Emails the competition organizers.
The History
Accompanied by Head of Chemistry, Jamie Styles, and Head of Physics, Chris Telfer, 6th formers Tim Lazarus, Tom Egan, Charlie Steward, Jamie Gleave and Aiden Findlay left Torquay Marina at 10.00am aboard the Royal Navy vessels HMS Exploit and HMS Pursuer and were ferried to the selected launch point 30km off the south-west coast of England.En route to the launch, the College team witnessed a real life rescue as a Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, and a coastguard helicopter provided assistance to a medical emergency aboard a pleasure yacht.
With a flat sea and the temperature hitting 26˚C, The Microtransat Challenge officially started on 5th July 2016 10.53am. Nerves were jangling as the boat headed the wrong way but it quickly pointed its bow in the right direction towards the Atlantic.
Initially, the tracking system appeared not to be working as it placed the boat somewhere near Paris but a small tweak to some of the land-based software quickly fixed the error.
As a final test before being left to the journey, the boat had to endure the swell of HMS Dragon as the destroyer made multiple passes to allow its crew to watch the launch.
After seeing the boat off, the team made the return trip to Torquay during which they were delighted to be flanked by a pod of breaching dolphins.
The Goal
The College team is aiming to be the first to successfully complete The Microtransat Challenge, which was launched in 2005 to stimulate the development of fully autonomous model sailing boats capable of crossing the Atlantic in an east-west or west-east direction.
Bringing together students and staff from the Mathematics, Geography, Chemistry, Physics and Computing Departments, the team have been working on the design of their boat since September 2015 as part of a student-led STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) project.
Proud to Support Educators
Learning doesn’t happen just in a classroom and at Ground Control we work very closely with Educators and Researchers alike to ensure there is no limit to their projects.
If you’d like to learn more or have a project coming up that you need satellite connectivity for, simply get in touch and one of our expert team will help.
How RockBLOCK Helps Deliver Critical Medical Care via Drone
Skylift UAV designs, manufactures and operates specialist commercial drones for applications as diverse as surveillance, search and rescue, surveying, and fertilization of crops. The highly experienced Skylift team were engaged by Apian, a medical drone startup founded by a team of NHS doctors, to work with them on two projects: a prescription delivery pilot for Boots Pharmacy, and delivery of chemotherapy doses to cancer patients.
Challenge No. 1: Reducing Chemotherapy Drug Waste
Cancer patients on the Isle of Wight, located just off the south coast of the UK, sometimes experience issues in receiving their chemotherapy treatment. The chemotherapy drug is manufactured at Portsmouth Hospital University NHS Trust, couriered to Portsmouth Harbour, ferried over to the Isle of Wight, then transferred by taxi to St Mary’s Hospital, a process taking up to four hours. As chemotherapy drugs have a limited shelf life, it’s important they’re administered within a short time-frame of being created.
The chemotherapy is manufactured and dispatched before the patient is clinically assessed and approved for treatment, which can mean that on arrival, the drug can’t be used, and will be wasted. Further, there are many opportunities for this process to be subject to delays and cancellations, which creates an overhead of admin for the hospital staff, and again, can lead to drugs being wasted.
Transporting the chemotherapy via drone reduces the transport time to 30 minutes; this means it can be dispatched after the patient has been cleared for treatment, and unlike public transport, there are very few circumstances in which the drone may be held up. This means less wastage, reduced admin, and fewer delayed treatments.
Challenge No. 2: Finding Efficiencies in Prescription Delivery
In addition to the NHS, Boots Pharmacy also wanted to expedite the delivery of prescriptions to customers in remote areas; in this case, to create economic efficiencies. The Isle of Wight, because of the difficulties of transportation over the Solent (a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain), was a sensible place to trial incorporating drones into its medical supply chain.
How Drones are Delivering Medicines
Skylift UAV built an autonomous eVTOL (electric, vertical take-off and landing) aircraft which can fly for 1.5 hours on a single charge, with a maximum speed of 100 Mph. In BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) configuration, it can travel up to 100 Km, depending on the payload; in this instance, the distance travelled is 40 Km. This gives the drone plenty of juice to compensate for adverse wind conditions, or waiting for permission to land.
The drones are autonomous, but monitored by Skylift’s safety pilots who can take control of the drone at any time. As the drone travels BVLOS, and across a body of water (the Solent), it’s essential that the pilots have two reliable means of communication with the drone at all times. The Skylift UAV team chose RockBLOCK 9603 in addition to aviation-grade L-Band radio to ensure that irrespective of the drone’s location, connectivity is guaranteed.
The commands are simple: stop, start, return etc. What’s important is that the means of sending and receiving these commands is completely reliable, which is why the Skylift UAV team chose RockBLOCK 9603, and Iridium satellite constellation.
RockBLOCK 9603 is a robust, compact piece of equipment that can send and receive short messages from anywhere on Earth with a view of the sky. It’s a plug-and-play device with its own power supply and antenna, which allows it to communicate with the Iridium satellite network for pole to pole coverage.
“For us, the key benefit of the RockBLOCK 9603 is reliability. We don’t need to worry about what’s over the horizon – we know we’ll be able to communicate with our drones. It’s an essential part of our dual-redundancy system, and has never let us down.”
Toby Moores, CEO, Skylift
What’s Next?
There are many additional medical applications for drones that are being explored in addition to expediting deliveries over bodies of water / extremely remote areas. For example:
- Delivering emergency / essential medical supplies to vulnerable people who are at high risk if they travel
- Reducing the risk of medicines expiring because the ease and speed of distribution is greater, and far less subject to disruption
- Mitigating risk of transmission of infectious diseases with M2M deliveries.
Would you like to know more?
With over 40 years of combined knowledge of satellite experience, the Ground Control team is well placed to help keep you connected when it matters the most.
Whatever your communication or connectivity needs, we can help. Talk to one of our team to discover our products and services and how they can benefit, improve and streamline your applications.
Oshen, a Plymouth, UK-based company, specializes in developing one meter long ocean robots designed for weather and environmental monitoring.
These robots, engineered to function as adaptable buoys, provide vital data from the sea over extended periods, enabling transformative advancements in oceanographic research and forecasting.
The Challenge
For Oshen’s ocean robots to operate effectively, they require robust, low power satellite communication to ensure seamless data transfer and remote control, especially in areas beyond cellular coverage.
The ability to access real time sensor readings and monitor device performance without manual intervention is critical for maintaining operational efficiency and delivering actionable insights.
The Solution
Oshen partnered with Ground Control to integrate Iridium Short Burst Data (SBD) technology into their ocean robots. Our satellite communication solutions provide reliable, low-power connectivity, enabling Oshen to collect mission-critical data and remotely monitor the robots’ performance in real time.
The RockBLOCK 9603 satellite module, tailored for low power devices, has been seamlessly incorporated into Oshen’s system, ensuring efficient operation even in challenging marine environments.
“Ground Control’s support has been invaluable in getting the data moved by the RockBLOCK 9603 modules to work with an easy-to-use dashboard.”
Marcus Thorpe, Robotics Engineer, Oshen
The Results
Oshen has achieved remarkable milestones with its satellite IoT-enabled ocean robots.
- Storm Navigation Success: One of Oshen’s ocean robots successfully navigated through a severe storm, demonstrating the reliability and resilience of its systems under extreme conditions
- Enhanced Forecasting Collaboration: Oshen is working with the Met Office to explore how its data can enhance weather forecasting, potentially revolutionizing the accuracy of marine and atmospheric predictions
- Marine Wildlife Monitoring: In partnership with a leading U.S.-based ocean research institute, Oshen is contributing to dolphin and whale monitoring projects, expanding its role in advancing marine conservation efforts.
Oshen’s innovative approach to ocean data collection, combined with Ground Control’s reliable satellite IoT solutions, is driving significant advancements in marine research and environmental monitoring. By overcoming the challenges of remote communication, Oshen continues to unlock new possibilities for oceanographic exploration and sustainability.
Can Satellite IoT Enhance Your Operations?
We design and build our satellite IoT hardware in the UK and USA, in addition to a suite of software services designed to help you get the most out of your data.
We are experts at retrieving data from remote locations reliably, cost-effectively, and quickly. Email hello@groundcontrol.com to speak with one of our technical team, or complete the form.
The role RockBLOCK 9603 plays in the removal of carbon from open oceans
Running Tide is on a mission to restore ocean health and productivity, rebalance the carbon cycle, decarbonise global supply chains, and revitalise coastal communities.
Running Tide’s multidisciplinary team designs and develops integrated software and hardware systems, including monitoring and measurement capabilities to deploy nature-based interventions that remove carbon, combat ocean acidification, and increase the scientific understanding of ocean ecosystems.
The Global Carbon Challenge
Globally, 100–1000 billion tons of CO2 must be removed from the atmosphere before the end of the century to reach long term climate goals of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). One impact of this will be to lower the levels of acidity in the ocean, which by some estimates, has already absorbed 30% of the 2 trillion tonnes of CO2 emitted since the beginning of the industrial era.
The high acidity is wiping out marine species and contributing to coral bleaching; by reducing ocean acidification, we can protect marine life, and prevent greater food insecurity. Development of technologies that drive large-scale intervention to move CO2 from the fast carbon cycle to the slow cycle are essential to achieving this goal.
The deep ocean is a massive reservoir that, by current estimates, stores 37,000 gigatons of carbon. Efficiently and effectively moving measurable quantities of CO2 from the fast cycle back to slow, while not disrupting or causing damage to marine life, requires both nature-based innovation and satellite-based technology.
Ocean-Based Carbon Removal
Running Tide is developing a global carbon removal system with the capability to integrate and amplify natural carbon removal pathways. It processes sustainably sourced, carbon-rich terrestrial biomass into buoys, to be deployed in the open ocean and dispersed by ocean currents.
Buoys are coated with calcium carbonate or similar alkaline materials, and when placed in the open ocean, the carbon buoy partially dissolves, thereby sequestering CO2 through a recognised carbon removal process known as Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE).
Running Tide also incorporates macroalgae in its carbon removal system. Buoys can be seeded with macroalgae, and in the duration that the carbon buoys float, the macroalgae fixes carbon while it grows. Once the buoys absorb enough water to lose buoyancy, they rapidly sink, transporting the embodied fast carbon to the deep ocean (slow carbon cycle), where it remains for centuries or millennia.
Moving To The Slow Carbon Cycle
This process effectively transports carbon, stored in both the macroalgae and terrestrial biomass within the buoy, thereby removing it from the fast cycle to the slow carbon cycle. The system amplifies existing natural processes, and utilizes low-energy inputs (gravity, photosynthesis, and ocean currents). Running Tide’s carbon removal system is highly scalable, and shows the promise of a solution that can meet the scale of the problem.
To measure the efficacy of carbon buoy deployments, Running Tide utilizes a fleet of verification buoys that are deployed alongside the carbon buoys at sea, part of the company’s detailed quantification platform.
Powered by RockBLOCK 9603
Capturing data from the carbon buoy deployments is essential to understanding their rate of progress, and satellite connectivity for the data transmission is essential. While designing their verification buoy fleet, Running Tide conducted a deep dive into the available satellite communication options, and selected RockBLOCK 9603.
This Iridium-powered, plug-and-play transceiver sends and receives messages via Short Burst Data (SBD) from anywhere on Earth with a view of the sky. This makes the device the optimum solution for reliable data transmissions from Running Tide’s verification buoys.
The data transferred is designed to quantify the carbon removed and optimize the system for future deployments: including those related to the size and composition of buoys, the lifecycle of the macroalgae, and the timing and location of deployments.
“Capturing comprehensive and accurate data in the early stages of the carbon buoy roll-out is particularly important so we can model the impacts of each iteration of our interventions and the progression of macroalgae in future deployments. We chose the RockBLOCK 9603 because it provides global coverage, has competitive and flexible data plans, and is integrator friendly to our existing carbon removal system.”
Tim Dyson | Senior Electrical Engineering Manager | Running Tide
What’s Next?
In December 2022 and January 2023, Running Tide launched two deployments of verification buoys out of its base in Iceland, which encapsulated RockBLOCK 9603 technology. Ultimately, Running Tide’s carbon removal system aims to not only restore and amplify the transfer of carbon from the fast cycle to the slow at scale, but to also create carbon-negative supply chains that drive decarbonization across a number of additional critical industries.
Would you like to know more?
With over 20 years of satellite experience, the Ground Control team is well placed to help keep you connected when it matters the most.
Whatever your communication or connectivity needs, we can help. Talk to one of our team to discover our products and services and how they can benefit, improve and streamline your applications.
Madcap Project – LOHAN
LOHAN is a madcap project involving using a high altitude balloon to launch a glider to the edge of space then have it released from the balloon and navigate itself down to a designated landing spot.
The team needed a way to communicate if/when the LOHAN travelled out of GPRS coverage. Additionally the authorities required an emergency balloon cut-down in the event that LOHAN wandered off course.
Enter RockBLOCK 9602. As well as transmitting GPS data when the unit was out of range of standard mobile networks, the RockBLOCK was also used to receive commands from the ground. If they wished to abort the mission, a message sent to the RockBLOCK using our API, would be received on-board the spacecraft and activate the self-destruct mechanism.
LOHAN Components
- RockBLOCK 9602 naked unit
- Arduino Mini Pro 3.3V 8MHz
- 5V regulator
- AAA battery holder
- Four Energizer lithium AAAs
- MOSFET to fire the release
- Cable with JST connector to connect to cut-down
- The LOHAN Spacecraft
The Challenge
The team plan to launch a rocket-powered Vulture 2 spaceplane from under a helium balloon and ask it to guide itself back to terra firma using an onboard autopilot system. This is commonly known as a ‘rockoon’ concept, or ‘ballocket’, and it presents a few serious technical challenges – not least how to launch the aircraft. As meteorological balloons can get really, really big at altitude, any launch plan needs to balance offering the vehicle the chance to get to maximum altitude while avoiding an enormous latex sphere.
Several had the idea of using multiple balloons, but the team ruled against this, the logic being, it multiplies the diameter problem and doesn’t really offer an advantage in terms of maximum attainable altitude. Afterall, all balloons would burst at around the same height, and it’s likely the first explosion would trigger multiple bangs.
Instead the team’s research brought them back to the 1980s – John Guest was involved in a rockoon project aiming to put a 1-gram payload into orbit. Unfortunately, as a result of the estimated $50K cost, this project came to nothing, evidently though some real thought was given to the matter. Guest wrote: “Launch before balloon burst. Much better platform stability. Once burst occurs, you don’t know what your craft attitude is going to be. You won’t make orbit (and I don’t think you want to, really). However, a launch attitude of 45 degrees would both maximize downrange distance and altitude.”
This echoed the team’s experiences with rockoons launched vertically which have sacrificed the balloon; disregarded due to the potential damage to the aircraft. Instead the team plan on trying the suggested spaceplane launch angle of 45 degrees.
The Initial Spec
Based on the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) concept of having the aircraft attached to a main payload box:
- Single helium balloon, lift capability 1,000 feet per minute
- Main payload box with onboard video and stills cameras
- Main payload to contain both a) launch trigger electronics and b) Vulture 2 onboard systems enabling electronics
- Launch of Vulture 2 programmed for before balloon burst
- Main payload to descend by rocket recovery parachute
- Main payload recovery systems to include GPS radio beacon.
In summary, the main payload electronics will enable the Vulture 2 onboard cameras and autopilot, and then fire the rocket motor at a predetermined altitude. The aircraft will fly at an angle of 45° from some form of launch platform, the design of which should run in tandem with the Vulture 2 development.
We wish the team all the best with launch and future projects!
Built with Ground Control
The work we support genuinely inspires us, and we’re proud to be a part of the innovative solutions created by our partners and customers.
If you’d like to get in touch with the team either to discuss a challenge similar to that of the one above, or something completely different our team of experts will be happy to provide objective advice.
Kraken Project and the RockBLOCK
‘Kraken’ is a project by Sutton Grammar School, and this case study is written by them. The main concept behind the buoy is its primary use as an oil response system. The system is based around an oil response unit that aims to make it easier for oil companies to clean up spills quickly and effectively.
It consists of a series of buoys that cooperate to give an image of the spread of oil by using sophisticated GPS and radio technology. Using this, companies can get a picture of where oil has and will spread and then clean up spills as fast as possible.
RockBLOCK 9602 is used to transmit the GPS position and other collected data back to a central management system to allow monitoring of the situation in near real-time.
Components of the Kraken Buoy:
- Arduino Atmega328 controller
- uBlock Max 6Q
- Inertial and Temp Sensors
- RockBLOCK 9602 naked unit.
GPS – U-blox Max 6Q
These determine the location of each buoy as a latitude and longitude, and provide accurate synchronised timekeeping (GPS time) for all buoys. GPS modules communicate with the Arduino via the UBX binary protocol over a serial RS232 interface and use Sarantel SL1202 (now discontinued) antennae. The modules have been optimized for 2-D ocean use in power-saving mode (positional fix every five minutes). The team used these receivers partly because they’re very small (so will fit into the ‘nymphs’) can be put into low power mode to extend the battery life of the buoys while at sea.
Hope Microelectronics RFM22B Transceiver
[Short Range Radios]
These are low-power boards used for short range communications (sending GPS data) between buoys in the Poseidon network. The team used this open source Arduino library for easy communication between the Arduino and radio modules. Packets of data are automatically encoded and decoded, further simplifying the Arduino programming.
Arduino Atmega328
This microprocessor chip is used by the Arduino Uno board (but is in surface mount form on our buoys). They are programmed in C with the Arduino IDE version 1.0.1 and coordinate the behaviour of each buoy, decoding and relaying data from various components, e.g. the GPS receivers or the IMU out to the RockBLOCK radio.
Buoy Network Concept
The students aimed to fully utilize the benefits of an entire network of buoys by allowing the ‘nymphs’ to relay each other’s transmissions to the ‘Kraken’, in case some drift out of range of the RFM22B radios. Each nymph broadcasts the GPS data it has stored in its memory to all other buoys, which receive and store this data in their own memories. This means that each time a buoy transmits its memory contents, it is transmitting GPS data on behalf of all the other buoys (not just its own location).
So if a buoy moves out of range of the ‘Kraken’, its data will still reach the Kraken providing that other nymphs are still in range to act as relays. The Kraken collects all these data transmissions to send back to the team via the Iridium constellation, enabling them to track the location of each buoy in the network whilst using only one RockBLOCK radio.
Kraken Buoy Features
- Iridium Satellite Constellation: The team use this satellite network to relay data from the buoys (wherever they are in the world) back to project HQ. The RockBLOCK radio sends data to a passing satellite. The satellite relays this data to a ground station that then emails it to the team. This includes GPS readings to update their live map.
- Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU): The IMU is sampled at 10Hz and data is transmitted back to the team to analyse.
- Additional Sensors: The buoy also contains an onboard battery voltage monitor, so they know how much longer the batteries will last. Internal temperature sensor (located near the edge of the buoy to be as close as possible to the outside water temperature). Connected to the Arduino via a one wire interface.
Supporting Educators
The work we support genuinely inspires us, and we’re proud to support educators bringing learning to life.
If you’d like to get in touch with the team either to discuss an opportunity or project similar to that of the one above, or something completely different our team of experts will be happy to provide objective advice.