THE SEAKEEPER 1000™

8 Years Later
The Technology
Deployments
Applications
Alliances & Affiliations
Technical Achievements
Technical Manual
Technical FAQ’s
SK1000 Brochure
Technical Specifications (pdf)

A fully automated, modular, scientific data acquisition system, designed to monitor weather and surface ocean parameters continuously, transmitting data by satellite or other wireless communications. Two different models make this system well suited for ships, buoys, piers or remote locations. The award winning SeaKeeper 1000™ oceanographic and meteorological monitoring system was developed to fill a need for an automated, economical and unmanned water and weather monitoring device. The SeaKeeper 1000 needs very little supervision or human intervention. The design criteria aimed to require service calls only a few times a year, since its first deployment this goal has not only been met, but often exceeded.  Compared to conventional oceanographic monitoring, agencies using these autonomous systems save significantly on labor costs.

There are four design features that make the SeaKeeper 1000 especially noteworthy and helped it win the prestigious Tech Museum Intel Award for International Environmental Technology. First, by converting traditional “in situ” sensors into flow-through designs housed in a cabinet, the sometimes delicate sensors are less vulnerable to being damaged by the ocean environment and do not require deployment by divers. Second, the bio-fouling typical of “in situ” ocean instrumentation is dramatically reduced due to the sensors being in a dark environment.  Additionally, there is a daily antifouling cycle where a chlorine gas is electrically generated by the SeaKeeper 1000 system at its seawater inlet. Third, the interchangeable, modular sensors are a totally new innovation. It is a “plug and work” design for interchangeable sensors including a physical mount, as well as connectors for water flow, electrical power and data. Finally, the self contained, “package” design, from the through-hull water intake and the flow-through sensors to the data archiving and data transmission, is a revolutionary improvement in the cost, size, and convenience of near-surface ocean monitoring.

As the developer of this innovative platform, The International SeaKeepers Society recently decided to make its sensor interface and overall architecture available pro bono. More than 45 systems are installed worldwide on a variety of platforms, all of which are capable of carrying additional FSIS ™ (Ferrybox Sensor Interface Standard) compliant sensors. These interchangeable modular sensors are a key design feature of the SeaKeeper 1000 system. SeaKeepers is now actively soliciting commercial firms to adapt to its standardized sensor interface.  By encouraging the use of the freely licensed SeaKeeper system as a standard for the ocean-monitoring community, SeaKeepers hopes to make this kind of data collection less expensive, expand the market for new sensors, and contribute to the greater good of an enhanced global ocean-observing system.