Developing OceanWatcher for port water-level data and DMI

A Danish port customer commissioned Vikingegaarden to develop water-level and sea-temperature monitoring with data delivery to the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI). The proposed system was called ProPower OceanWatcher.

Archive context: This account describes the development plans and proposed release in 2020. For the current equipment and configuration options, see OceanWatcher water-level monitoring.

A development task from a port customer

"We have received a new development task from one of our port customers, where we have to develop a module for the ProPower system with water level measurement and sea temperature measurement around the port. The port customer is involved in the Danish Meteorological Institute's research and measurement of the water level on Denmark's coasts. Our port customer approached us and expressed a need for a solution with data collection," says CEO Ulrik Østergaard.

The customer participated in DMI’s research and measurement of water levels along the Danish coast and wanted a way to collect the required data.

"We consider ourselves the port's external IoT development department, so of course I said thank you for the task and told the customer that we should probably help with that," concludes Ulrik Østergaard.

The planned OceanWatcher module

The original development plan proposed a release at the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2020. It described water-level and sea-temperature records for the port’s own use, together with delivery of water-level data to DMI through VMS Cloud.

The port would be able to review current and historical readings in graphs. The announcement also described the records as a basis for warning and information services for ships.

Current monitoring options

Today’s OceanWatcher range connects supported water measurements to the Emiko platform. The sensor, power and any temperature option are selected for the installation; configured EasyShare services can share data with DMI. For a wider local observation setup, compare weather stations for ports.