Norwegian company Innomar Ocean Technology has launched a smart buoy designed to help locate fishing traps, longlines, and nets. The ‘Sunfish Smart Buoy’ uses the cellular IoT connectivity of Nordic’s low power nRF9160 SiP with multimode LTE-M/NB-IoT modem with GNSS to transmit its location to the Cloud. Users can then track the trap location from their smartphone.
The nRF9160 SiP combines cellular network location data with GNSS trilateration for precise position monitoring, which helps reduce the number of traps being lost in the ocean. The smart buoy can achieve a battery life of up to three months, using alkaline AA batteries, thanks, in part, to the class-leading power consumption of the nRF9160 SiP, which supports both PSM and eDRX power saving modes. For both LTE-M and NB-IoT the PSM floor current is as low as 2.7 µA, and with an eDRX interval of 655 s the average current is 6 µA for LTE-M and 9 µA for NB-IoT.
Using the DigiCatch app (available for iOS and Android), users can see the location of all their devices, as well as view the distance to each buoy in meters. Users will also be alerted if a device moves outside of the set perimeter. When locating fishing gear, the app provides a direction arrow for easy navigation, and can show current direction in ‘real-time’. The app can also be integrated with chart plotters, including Olex and BarentsWatch.
