Makers, developers and electronic enthusiasts looking for a way to communicate with the Iridium satellite network, may be interested in the new circuit board created by Maker Buoy. Their latest developer on board offers a solar powered GPS tracker providing communications with Iridium, due to its ability to be attached to a Feather form factor board, Adafruit has added it to its Feather list of components. The new
“The idea for an Arduino-based drifting buoy arose from a fascination with the Internet of Things applied to the ocean. In 2016 we deployed an Arduino-based buoy with GPS and an Iridium transceiver off Norfolk, VA. Amazingly, that buoy lasted over two years and travelled over 9000 miles. Since then, several more capable buoys have been deployed and documented here. The current Maker Buoy design is a descendant of those earlier buoys, but smaller, cheaper, and easier to construct. This design is currently in use providing valuable information on ocean currents.”
For data transmission, the Maker Buoy design utilizes the Iridium Short Burst Data (SBD) service for worldwide service. Costs of the service are a monthly modem registration fee of $13/mo and $.06/message (50 Bytes) sent or received.
Source: Adafruit