System Design Sat Nov 7 04:48:35 2009

VECO Polar Resources, under contract with the National Science Foundation, and under the direction of Dr. Patrick Sullivan, is responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the system. The communications design was done by four college seniors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute as part of their "Senior Qualifying Project." See their report for a thorough description of their design process.

The sytem comprises four sub-system:
  • Sensors and datalogging via a Campbell Scientifc CR1000 datalogger
  • Power generated by a PV panel and stored in gel batteries
  • Data transmission via a Iridium satellite modem
  • Data reception by the Data Transport Network.
The system is completely powered by a single 20W PV panel illuminated for only a portion of the year. During the Winter two 100 A-hr batteries provide the necessary power to run the CR1000 datalogger 24x7 and the Iridium modem during transmission. Between transmissions the modem is shut down to conserve power.

The system is mounted on a steel conduit along with meteorological sensors and anchored to the ground with guy wires. The experiment's sensors run from the CR1000 enclosure to the site plots. 		SystemDrawing.png

The CR1000 datalogger (not shown) serves as the system controller, orchestrating sensor readings, Iridium modem power control, and data transmission. This controller board, located in the battery enclosure, houses the Iridium modem, the modem's power switching circuit, and the power system's charge controllers.

Data reception, storage, and plotting is controlled through the Data Transport Network. A receiving Iridium modem launches data into the Network where monitoring and plotting routines listen for new data and system alerts.

The BOM roughly comes to $9,000. Please contact for a complete description of the system.