CINEMar/Open Ocean Aquaculture Annual Progress Report for the period 1/01/05 through 12/31/05

Principal Investigator: James D. Irish and Walter Paul

I. Accomplishments
The work performed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) as part of the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Open Ocean Aquaculture Demonstration Project (OOA), is closely integrated and coordinated with the ongoing UNH efforts. The feed buoy controller and “Control Central” work is being done in close collaboration with Stan Boduch with input from the operations component of the program. Also, collaboration with the engineering component involves instrumenting the fish cages, moorings, materials issues and rubber stretch hoses. Therefore, the following report will necessarily overlap and complement material presented in the Project Management and Offshore Operations, Project Infrastructure, Environmental Monitoring, and Offshore Aquaculture Engineering annual reports.

A. Scheduled Tasks

1. Feed Buoy Monitoring and Control: (in collaboration with Stan Boduch).
   • Upgrade the feed buoy software as required by operations and hardware improvements and changes in the feed buoys.
   • Assist in data telemetry upgrades to provide operational data as necessary.
   • Work toward completing an “Operations Central” control center.
2. Engineering Support:
   • Deploy load cells and recorders, current meters and motion packages on the OOA moorings and fish cages in support of monitoring and modeling studies.
   • Continue to supply information to the UNH team on materials, ropes, hoses, etc. as required for OOA operations.
   • Continue to provide access to WHOI personnel and resources to the OOA effort as appropriate.
3. Monitoring Buoy/Observatory (done in collaboration with Stanley Boduch (UNH-OE) and Larry Ward (UNH - Jackson Lab). Note: This section is covered more completely in the Environmental Monitoring Report, and just outlined here for completeness.
   • Completion of the second buoy with electronics, radios, etc and deployment as the next step toward providing a 24x7 observatory. The old buoy will also be updated with new electronics, connectors, radio, so that there will be two systems available to the observing effort to provide better data continuity.
   • Addition of an air temperature sensor at 2 meters elevation in a Gill radiation shield and a PAR sensor on the antenna mast for incoming spectral irradiance.
   • Testing of coil-cord telemetry of the 22-meter observations. This technology was started as part of a NASA funded technology development effort, but was never deployed. As part of this project, we will terminate the existing coil-cord cable, and deploy the coil-cord elastic tether system in the next year to test this technology’s ability to pass data around the compliant elastic tethers from the 22-meter SeaCat and telemeter it to shore for display on the WWW.
   • Rework the lower ADCP frame to hold two acoustic releases, line canisters and floats, and replace the mid-water flotation and release package with two plastic floats providing about 150 lbs buoyancy (the same as previously used). This will make the system easier to retrieve, reduce the mid-water drag and recovery problems, and streamline the system to improve operational efforts.
   • Establish routine procedures for checking and replacing mooring and recovery ropes, and mooring hardware. Start documenting the complete system and methodology as we move toward “going operational” and making this system part of the emerging National Observatory system
   • Calibrate all instruments, either returning to the factory (Seabird, and Licor), or calibrating at UNH and WHOI (accelerometer, signal conditioning circuits, A/D converters, and air temperature).

B. Progress on Tasks
1. Feed Buoy Monitoring and Control: (in collaboration with Stan Boduch).
A. Software: At the end of the last year we had made major modifications to the Quarter-ton and One-ton feed buoy controlling software to make them more similar utilizing parts of each system that appeared to work well or needed upgrading. As part of this operation WHOI wrote code for both buoys to transfer control files (for feeding times and controlling feeding operations) automatically from the base station at the Seacoast Science Center to the offshore feed buoys. This was another step toward our goal of an Operations Center with graphic user interface and control system to controlling offshore aquaculture operations. Doing the offshore end first, the methodology could be used by someone on shore without the fancy GUI front end, and accomplish the task of changing the feeding program to meet changing needs of the fish.

However, with the loss of the one-ton buoy, the quarter ton buoy software and Seacoast Science Center software were rewritten to only support the x-modem transfer of files to the quarter ton buoy. This system worked well. A directory on the computer at the Seacoast Science center was set aside for new control files. When the buoy had started its hourly routine, it checked to see if there were new control files available, and if so downloaded them and used them on that hour’s feeding cycle. Thus, a user only had to change the control files, download them to the Seacoast Science Center, and know that the next hour they would be transferred to the feed buoy and used until they were changed again. The files that were transferred to the offshore feed buoy were then placed in a dated archive on he Seacoast Science Center computer so there would be a record of the files sent offshore. With the recovery of the quarter-ton feed buoy, continuing work was done for the rest of the year on updating the offshore operating program in preparation for the next deployment. Further, tests and minor modifications were made on the new software as the result of these tests.

B. Software Version Control: It became apparent with the load cell system additions, environmental monitoring buoy modifications and the quarter ton and one-ton feed buoy modifications, that good version control and backup was required so that we could revert to a previous version easily if there were problems with an approach to solving one control problem, and know what version was change at what time and what version was running on the system at any one time. In a research development environment, the software must necessarily change as more is learned about feeding the kinds of fish in an offshore environment and what feedback is required to keep track of the status of the feed buoy and the feeding, lighting, water properly monitoring, etc which is required for the operation, monitoring and control of an offshore aquaculture program.

Also, as part of the transition of software development to UNH, and to assist in the testing of new software, a computer was purchased for use at UNH that has the latest feed buoy, Environmental Monitoring Buoy, and load cell recorder software on it as a backup to the software on the WHOI development computers. The Code Warrior C++ development system is also being loaded on this computer, so that the software can be changed at UNH during system testing by WHOI personnel working at UNH, and by UNH personnel during testing.

C. Stretch Feed Hose with Conductors: The high stretch hose (designed and constructed for the quarter-ton feed buoy), which elongates 140 percent at maximum working load, survived two years of continuous deployment at the OOA site. It was retrieved in March 2005 when the steel bolts, which secured its lower flange coupling to the net cage, failed due to metal fatigue. The bolt failure tore out the impulse connectors that enabled the electrical link for water properties and video telemetery from the cage to the feed buoy.

The hose combines the functions of a flexible feed tube, a buoy mooring link, and an electrical signal and power connection between net cage and surface buoy. The electrical conductors, which are embedded in a near zero strain geometry inside the high stretching rubber hose wall, showed no reduction in conductivity and seem to be unharmed. However, due to seawater penetration into the hose assembly when the connectors were torn out, there was resistance leakage between some of the conductors, making them unusable. Stan Boduch installed new electrical pigtails and Impulse connectors. Subsequently the conductor splice area was covered with a molded boot as shown in Figure 1.

The highly stretchable mooring link has proven to be extremely durable despite its dynamic load environment in service, which is a key component of a successful open ocean aquaculture installation for finfish grow-out. A small separation of the inner hose rubber layer at its interface with the hose coupling was observed after retrieval. This is most likely caused by small rubbing motions due to stretch and retraction of the hose at this point. Future feed hoses will further reduce this stretch effect by adding additional tire-cord reinforcing in this region.

A recent comparative break test of a new 8 meter long stretch hose and the same hose design after a one year service in a MBARI buoy mooring in the Pacific (based on the UNH hose design and performance) showed practically no loss in breaking strength and compliance of the hose after one year (Paul, et al., 2005). This hose has a calculated breaking strength of 20,000 lbs and an elongation at break of 70 to 75 percent. The load ­extension curves of these hoses are shown in Figure 2. MBARI is now planning to use the stretch hoses for a four to five year deployment. If a 4-5 year service life can be achieved, spreading of the significant hose cost over the longer service life will contribute to a more economical operation of an offshore fish farm. Further information about the technology and performance of the UNH feed hose and other stretch hoses in buoy moorings is found in (Paul, 2004).

Command Central ­ the shore support of offshore operations. Some progress was made this year, but progress was slow as it depended on feed buoys being deployed, a definite set of actions that need be taken and the desired operations to be monitored and controlled. There have been several upgrades to the quarter-ton feed buoy and the successful completion of the control file upgrade software which puts us another step forward on the command center. We have in place the shore side support at the Seacoast Science Center (by Stan Boduch) with radios, antennas, Ethernet connections, computer, etc. A relative robust communications system offshore with several spread spectrum radios, and the potential upgrade at the Appledore Observatory being set up by UNH at the Isles of Shoals Marine Lab that may help the effort. The next step will be the UNH based computer for controlling operations, which is planned for the coming year along supporting software development.

2. Open Ocean Aquaculture Engineering Support:
A. Motion Package: This winter two new fish cages are being deployed at the OOA site - the Aqua Pod developed by Ocean Farm Technologies and the JPS Industries experimental prototype cage system. The first cage is currently deployed, and the second one planned for deployment this winter. Engineering studies of these cages require that the motion of the fish cage be measured in response to wave and current forcing. Previously this was done using the environmental monitoring buoy accelerometers and the mooring’s ADCP for wave and current forcing, and a 6-axis motion package measuring the fish cage response. This system was built around the Systron Donner MotionPak (Irish, et al., 2001), which measures three axes of acceleration and also the rotation of the system around the three axes. The system has a special filter board to prevent aliasing, and is sampled at 10 Hz by an A/D controlled by a PC-104 computer and the data stored on hard disk for later retrieval via an Ethernet link. The system is battery powered, and because the high current drain (0.7 amps for the computer and 0.5 amps for the MotionPak at 15 volts), the system can only run for about 6 weeks with a sampling program of 18 minute burst samples at 10 Hz every three hours.

The system is powered by a pack of 120 “D” cells made up into 12 packs of 10 cells each to provide about ~140 ampere hours of power (~2 Kw hours). As the initial manufacturer of the batteries used previously is no longer in business, a new supplier (Mathews Associates, Inc) for these custom battery packs was found and three packs purchased, one for testing and one for a deployment at each of the two new fish cages The motion system will require simple mounting hardware to attach it to these cages for testing. As there is no preferred orientation to the system, it can easily be attached as to a cage structural element with straps, and the average tilt of the system estimated from the direction of the average downward acceleration (especially when the weather is calm).

This past year the system was brought out of storage “dusted off” and extensively tested to make sure that it was still operating properly. For this winter’s deployments, the sampling program was not altered, although the system has the Borland C++ complier installed which would allow development of new software separate from any supporting system. The software is booted and controlled with a command line in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that allows simple changes in the sampling (time between bursts, length of bursts ­ see below). The PC-104 system runs DOS 6.2 and uses a Dallas clock to control power to the computer and sensors by removing all power between sample bursts to conserve battery life.

For initializing, programming, and dumping data a standard computer keyboard, VGA monitor and Ethernet board are plugged into the system. The VGA board is plugged into the PC-104 stack along with the an Ethernet board which are separate from the permanently installed stack of PC-104 boards so they can be removed during deployment when they aren’t required and so remove their power drain on the batteries. Also, an additional serial input board was removed this year to save power, as the COM3 port initially set up to receive data from the Aquadopp current meter is not being used. Data is retrieved from the PC-104 computer by plugging it into a 10/base-t Ethernet link and FTPing the data from the PC-104’s hard disk to a PC for analysis, archiving, and reporting. With the FTP connection on the machine, it is possible to connect it to the Internet and do data dumping, and software upgrades remotely over the Internet.

It should be noted that this motion system is set up with the capability of supporting additional instrumentation besides the MotionPak data, including powering and recording data from two load cells, receiving a serial input from a CTD, current meters and orientation sensors, and controlling a Simrad scanning sonar system. The system is also set up (with power switching and data communications by directing the main console control to a serial communications port ­ COM1) so that it can use a spread spectrum radio (as used in the Environmental Monitoring Buoy and Feed buoys) for the telemetry of data to shore. This would allow the system to be reprogrammed, data dumped by x-modem etc. over the radio link if desired for future deployments ­ e.g. in a feed buoy.

The software is written with a number of options in the program call. These options allow the sampling program to be tailored to a specific program. They are:

• g = #. To set the gain in the A/D (default = 1). Normally this allows for accelerations up to 1 g, however for conditions where motions are expected to be much smaller, the gain can be set higher to improve resolution.
• i = #. The sample interval in minutes > 60. (default = 180)
• b = #. The number of blocks to record. A block is DOS’s memory block of 65kbytes. At 10 Hz each block is about 6 minutes long, so 3 blocks (the default) ~ 18 minutes, which is about the 20 minutes suggested for wave measurements and the duration of the Environmental Monitoring Mooring’s buoy burst sample.
• n. Turns on immediate sampling that doesn’t wait for the hour and minute specified to sample.
• c. Disables the compass (however, we don’t have a serial compass which has three fluxgate sensors to give the orientation of the system in space).
• s. Stop the program, but don’t power down the system as the program normally does.
• m=#. Minute to start sampling on.
• t. Turns off the telemetery that is on by default.
• h. List of commands and sample of program call.

B. Currents: For measurement of the blockage of flow by the nets on the fish cages, a Nortek Aquadopp current meter will be mounted in each fish cage to measure the velocity somewhere near the center of the cage. The velocity outside the fish cage will be measured by a combination of velocity profiles from an ADCP on the Environmental Monitoring Mooring (on loan from WHOI), and near surface currents measured by MAVS-3 a current meter (borrowed from WHOI/GoMOOS) mounted below the wave buoy at about 3.6 m (12 feet) depth. This depth is about the middle of the cages under test, and above the shallowest good ADCP measurement (which extends up to about 5 m if we are lucky). (See Environmental Monitoring Mooring section of the Environmental Monitoring Report for pictures and mooring configuration plan for the current monitoring deployment.).

The Aquadopp will be deployed when the motion package is in the water. It will be set to sample a 1-minute burst every 15 minutes, similar to the sampling of the MAVS current meter for best comparison. The Aquadopp will be tied in the middle of the fish cages, much as it was tied in the middle of the Aqua Pod fish cage during the tow to the Aquaculture site as part of the drag measurement. The Aquadopp is a Doppler current meter that sends out signals along three acoustic beams, and measures the backscatter about 1.1 m from the instrument ­ away from the immediate flow disturbance of the current meter package. The current meter has a tilt sensor and compass, so that it can rotate the currents in to the earth reference frame of East, North and up. The instrument also measures the depth of the current meter (cage depth) and seawater temperature.

The goal of this work is to make the environmental measurements that can be used by the engineering part of the program to estimate the drag of the fish cage, blockage due to the fish cage structure and nets, and response to the surface current forcing and the surface wave forcing. The drag on the fish cages will be measured by load cells in the mooring lines.

This current meter was initially purchased for the OOA program, but after leaking during the first deployment, it was serviced, calibrated and repaired on another WHOI project. Then during the Heritage-Salmon program, the timing on the instrument became erratic (missing samples), so it was sent back to see why the repaired instrument wasn’t functioning properly. Nortek agreed that there was a problem and replaced the instrument with a new one, which has options for plugging in two analog sensors which are powered by the internal battery pack. This instrument was deployed during the Aqua Pod fish cage tow-out, has provided some data on flow blockage, and has worked well.

C. Load Cells: After the first deployment of load cells at the OOA site, there was severe crevice corrosion on some of the load cells, and some had flooded. For the Saltonstall-Kennedy funded Heritage Salmon project, some of the load cells were refurbished and used. The load cells were successfully protected from stainless steel crevice corrosion during the Heritage Salmon project by soft steel anodes, which appeared to work well. Some of these refurbished load cells have already been deployed at the OOA site in the mooring lines, and others are waiting deployment. Hopefully early next year, we will have all of the original load cells repaired and available for next year’s fish cage engineering studies.

To replace a long strongback that was bent during the recovery of the load cells after the first OOA deployment, a new strongback was build and added to the inventory. In addition three shorter strongbacks were acquired from WHOI (from another project) and added to the inventory. As a check on the operating load cells, complete system check and calibration of the recorders and the load cell/recorder combinations was made last year (see 2004 annual report). This formed the post Heritage-Salmon check and the pre- OOA deployment check on the instrumentation.

D. Fish Cage Tow-out: The Aqua Pod fish cage developed by Ocean Farm Technologies was assembled and towed out to the OOA site and moored within the mooring grid there with the other fish cages undergoing testing at the OOA site. During the tow out, a load cell was used by Jud DeCew to measure the drag on the fish cage at various speeds. This was the equipment used several years ago by Fredriksson and Irish (see UNH Open-Ocean Aquaculture Demonstration Project, Annual Report for 2000, Section 2 ­ Engineering Studies) to measure the drag on the Ocean Spar cages as part of engineering studies of the drag on the fish cages. Also, a Nortek Aquadopp current meter was moored in the fish cage during the tow-out, to determine the reduction in flow inside the cage due to the netting. This new information is now being studied to further the knowledge of fish cage structures and the required mooring configuration for offshore aquaculture operations.

E. Load Cell Recorders: The original four load cell recorders and their diver-deployed pressure cases were cleaned, checked and reworked to provide amplification for the load cell bridge inside the recorder, rather than inside the load cell. These amplifiers were designed and built by WHOI, and also provided protection to the A/D against damage by over-voltage (both positive and negative) as experienced on the Environmental Monitoring Mooring two years ago. There are a few extra boards that are now on hand, and will be used in updating and building new recorders for the newly refurbished load cells. New recorders will be built during the next year as required by the engineering effort and as funding allows. The original software written for the load cell recording systems was burned into onboard flash RAM and could not be changed in the field. When the battery was plugged in, the recorder started and ran until the battery got low or the experiment was stopped. When burned into flash, the programs were quite safe, couldn’t be set up wrong and worked well. The original sampling interval of three hours was shortened to 1 hour and the systems performed well in the Heritage Salmon program.

To allow the load cells and recorders to be calibrated as systems in the laboratory a calibration program LCCAL was written. When it starts, it waits 40 seconds for the signal conditioning circuit to stabilize then takes a 2 second sample and waits. Every time a key is pressed on a computer running a terminal emulator program, the program samples for 2 seconds and outputs 10 values to the screen and saves them on compact flash card in the recorder. The file is named LCMMDDHH.dMM, where MM= month, DD=day, HH= hour and MM=minute. This then allows the tension to be applied to the load cell, the recorder to make a reading, and the resulting values include the full load cell and data system calibration. This was done for all load cell recorders (the three single load cell recorders and the one three load cell recorder) and worked well. It provided output in the laboratory during calibration, and also provided the files for post-processing of the information.

Another program was written for “real-time” readout of the load cell data - LCREALTM. This allows the user to input the load cell parameters, after determining the zero tension reading, and then outputs the data at the selected rate to the terminal emulator through the serial port, and records the results on disk. This allows the data system to save data and show the operator what the tension is, e.g. the line tension during fish cage tow-out so that it doesn’t exceed equipment limits so it cannot break causing damage to equipment and people. It reads the parameters for the sampling from a file LCTPARAM.DAT which contains information on:

• Load Cell Recorder Number (even though it says load cell #)
• Sampling Frequency in Hz
• Load Cell Sensitivity (e.g. lbs/volt)
• Load Cell Zero ­ reading with no tension applied

This file can be modified by removing the compact flash card from the load cell recorder, inserting it into a PC and using a line editor. Or, the program can be run and stopped within 30 seconds. The system then reads the zero voltage, and allows the user to input parameters and update the LCTPARAM.DAT file and run the program.

A final program, TENSION, was written which is basically the initial sampling program with the sampling parameters read from a configuration file LCPARAM.DAT. (Note that this is spelled a little differently than the above parameter file.) This allows the user to select the sampling program that best fits his needs. Note that he needs to edit the parameter file on a PC as the option is not provided in the program to output a new parameter file. The file allows the user to set the following:

• Delay Start = (true or false) to determine if it reads the following
• delay start month = #
• delay start day = #
• delay start hour = #
• delay start minute = #
• Minutes to sample = #
• Load Cell Recorder number = # (although again it doesn’t say recorder)
• Minutes between start of bursts = #
• Sampling rate (Hz) = #

However, the program is not burned in flash so must be manually started with a terminal emulator rather than just plugging in the battery and deploying. This is the same as for LCREALTM and LCCAL. To get the program out of the automatic sampling mode, one pushes both reset buttons on the Persistor CF1 microcontroller at once, and then when you get a prompt, type “PICO” to get to a PicoDos prompt. The “boot pico” will keep it in the DOS mode for running other programs, looking at data files, deleting files, etc. To restart the program in flash memory, type “boot app.”

F. Diver Readout of Load Cells Tension: As it has always been a desire to measure the tension in several fish cage mooring lines during a single dive without having to insert a load cell in the mooring line, Stan Boduch and WHOI are assisting Glen Rice in setting up a system that will clamp on a rope and measure the tension in the rope by measuring the force required to deflect the rope a known amount using one of the standard load cells that we have been using. The unique feature of Glen Rice’s design is that he needn’t release the tension from a line and shackle in the load cell as has been done in the past. For a diver working on lines with >10,000 lb tensions, this approach appears to be much safer, and will allow “spot checks” of several lines in one dive. However, note that it will not do tension time series as a function of wave and current forcing. So we do need the earlier design, but Glen Rice’s system is a “neat” supplement to obtain tension information.

As part of this program Stan Boduch is building up a recording system using a spare load cell signal conditioning board and an LED display to provide real-time readout of line tension to a diver. The system will be housed in an old camera case UNH has in hand. New software will be written to drive a four line LED display that will be mounted in the case so that it is visible through the case by the diver. A magnetic reed relay will allow the diver to turn the recorder on and off. The software will detect the reed switch being closed, and will then power the load cell, normalize the data to tension in lbs and output it to the LED display and save it on compact flash for later analysis. Like previous programs, it will use the month, day, hour and minute to label the data files, for later post-processing of the data so the diver doesn’t have to keep a record of all the numbers during the dive, but just the time at which a measurement was made and where. This work is continuing into next year and will be used as part of Glen Rice’s thesis and be used in the testing of the two new fish cages being deployed and tested this winter.

References
Irish, J.D., M. Carroll, R. Singer, A. Newhall, W. Paul, C. Johnson, W. Witzell, “Instrumentation for Open Ocean Aquaculture Monitoring,” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Technical Report, WHOI-2001-15, October, 2001.

C. Important Results or Findings

• The feed buoy software for the quarter-ton and one-ton feed buoys was able to control the feeding operations remotely, yet remain flexible enough that it could change and grow with the addition of new feeding hardware, feeding requirements, and other supporting equipment.
• The next step in the overall system configuration and control of the feeders was accomplished by writing software that automatically transfers new feeding control files to the offshore feeding controllers, which then used the new feeding schedule for its future feeding operations.
• The planned separation of the controlling computer with its own battery, radio and recording system has proven successful. It allows the failures in the main power and feeding systems to be detected, and diagnostic information recorded and sent to shore via the radio link. Also, placing this subsystem in its own pressure case (that has survived being submerged to the 55 m depth at the OOA site) enabled the return of data on the diagnostic channels monitored after a major failure.
• The load cells that were reworked by the Heritage Salmon program then deployed there, and now at the OOA site have proved the new design with anodes to help prevent crevice corrosion in the stainless steel load cells.
• The successful measurement of drag on the Aqua Pod fish cage during towing to the OOA site with a load cell, provided information on the behavior of this cage system which is now moored in the OOA mooring grid with the other fish cages.
• The tire-cord reinforced rubber feed hose experienced problems after two years of uninterrupted service. Some of its conductors failed due to the break of the bolts that connected its lower coupling to the net-cage. Replacing the torn-up electrical conductor pigtails restored the conducting link for the video-stream. The conductors embedded in the high stretching hose wall were still functioning normal. The durability of the WHOI designed feed-hose and its conductor linkage is an encouraging result - it exceeded the endurance of steel bolts.

D. Difficulties Encountered
A main problem in programming and testing software for the feed buoys was the ability to test the operations. Generally there was little time to make changes and go through full testing with the systems as the software needed to be run in real time (that is hourly sampling), and quite a bit of time is required to test out all possible combinations to assure that the software is fully tested before it is transferred to the offshore operations. Hardware simulators constructed by Stan Boduch were a great help, but further feed back hardware needs to be constructed as we move toward the larger feed buoy and more complex controlling operation.

E. Anticipated Success in Meeting Project Objectives on Schedule
The project has several areas of activities. With respect to the monitoring of line tensions with load cells and recorders, the measurement of currents with standard current meters, the measurement of fish cage, buoy or other types of motion, we are and will continue to be able to provide the necessary support. Therefore, there should be no problems in these areas of interest. The feed buoy controllers and operations is a different matter. As the requirements are evolving, and the approach is being designed, we have only made educated guesses at the time involved in collaborating on the controller design and programming, and the accompanying Control Central. However, progress toward our goal of an operational system will be made, and as in the past we should provide support to get the system in the water and operating. As this is not fully defined as we start the next year, we are a bit worried about completing all the required tasks within the time and funding constraints.

F. Reports, manuscripts, and presentations resulting from the project
Paul, W.: “Hose Elements for Buoy Moorings: Design, Fabrication, and Mechanical Properties”. WHOI Technical Report WHOI-2004-06, August 2004.

Paul, W., M. Chaffey, A. Hamilton, and S. Boduch, “The use of Snubbers as strain limiters in Oceanographic Moorings,” published and presented at the OCEANS’2005 Conference in Washington, DC, September 2005.

Irish, J.D., “On Compliance in Coastal Moorings,” published and presented at the OCEANS’2005 Conference in Washington, DC, September 2005.

Fredriksson, D.W., M.R. Swift, O. Erosjkin, I. Tsukrov, J.D. Irish, and B. Celikkol, “Moored Fish Cage Dynamics in Waves and Currents, IEEE Jour. Oceanic Eng., 30, 28-36,2005.

Irish, J.D., W. Paul and D.M. Wyman, “The Determination of the Elastic Modulus of Rubber Mooring Tethers and Their Use in Coastal Moorings,” WHOI Tech. Rept., WHOI-2005-09, 42 pg, December, 2005.

Singer, R.D and J.D. Irish, “Operations Manual for the Load Cell Recorders,” informal report/manual for OOA personnel.

II. Tasks and Activities for Next Reporting period

A. Tasks for the next reporting period

• Continue to provide instrumentation support (current meters, load cells and recorders, motion measurement, etc.) as required for the OOA engineering studies and operations.
• Continue to work with OOA on the old and new feed buoy controllers and controlling of feeding and monitoring feed buoy operations.
• Continue to work toward a user friendly front end or Control Central for the offshore monitoring and control of aquaculture operations.
• Continue to supply information to UNH team on materials, ropes, hoses, etc. as required for OOA operations.
• Continue to provide access to WHOI personnel and resources to the OOA effort as appropriate.

B. Brief work plan to accomplish tasks
As in previous years, WHOI personnel will collaborate with UNH personnel on getting the required work done. We will continue to work with the engineering, operations, and monitoring components of the OOA program to provide instrumentation, design and construction assistance, programming of microcontrollers and computers, and to collect data required for engineering studies of the moorings and fish cages. We will utilize the expertise at WHOI to provide information for the design, construction and control of the feed buoys as required.

C. Anticipated concerns or difficulties
We have no major concerns. However, as the feed buoy controllers and operation requirements are evolving, we have only made educated guesses at the time involved in collaborating on the controller design and programming, and the accompanying Control Central. As the hardware and approach (single LINUX based computer, or distributed microcontrollers) and the exact program requirements are not fully defined as we start the next year, we are a bit worried about completing all the required tasks within the time and funding constraints. Particularly time consuming and important is the software and hardware integrated testing (important to produce reliable feed buoy operation with the desired control), which must be done in close collaboration with the UNH team. However, within the constraints of the budget and time, we should be able to make good progress on the feed buoy monitoring and controlling effort.

III. Expenditures
Expenditures were about as estimated, although the focus of the work changed as the program evolved during the past two years. All funds have been expended.