статья в журнале

En

Ocean Engineering

ISSN:00298018

2026

10.1016/j.oceaneng.2026.124212

With the ongoing trend of electronic miniaturization, oceanographic buoys designed for wave measurement are becoming increasingly compact. The intuitive benefit, besides lower costs and operating simplicity, is the wider bandwidth allowing for sensing much shorter waves than traditional wave buoys may sense. In this study a prototype of a Very Small Buoy (VSB) for ocean wave measurement is presented utilizing a commercial nine-degree-of-freedom inertial motion unit (IMU). The buoy is characterized by a strongly reduced size and mass, with a diameter of 45 mm and a weight of 25 g. A field experiment was conducted to assess the performance of this proof-of-concept design and to identify the specific challenges associated with such extreme miniaturization. The VSB was deployed concurrently with a 40-cm discus-shaped buoy and a resistive wave gauge, enabling a direct comparison of their responses across a broad frequency spectrum. The results demonstrate that the VSB extends the upper frequency limit for calibration-free heave measurements to approximately 3.5 Hz. However, this miniaturization introduces significant low-frequency artifacts in the estimated wave elevation spectra, which are substantially more pronounced than those observed with the larger buoy. These artifacts are shown to depend heavily on the algorithm chosen for estimating the instantaneous attitude and performing the necessary vertical acceleration correction. While the inherent noise floor of the IMU sensors is not a limiting factor for high-frequency measurements, the analysis reveals discrepancies between the observed spectra and short-wave spectral models. This highlights the necessity for careful calibration and independent validation if quantitative retrieval of the short-wave spectrum is intended. The study concludes that although miniaturization successfully expands the measurable wave bandwidth, it concurrently amplifies low-frequency noise and increases the critical dependence on motion processing algorithms, presenting key trade-offs for future development of ultra-compact buoy platforms.

Accelerometer, Field experiment, Inertial motion unit, Miniaturization, Proof-of-concept, Short waves, Wave buoy

2-s2.0-105028518862

Yurovsky Y.Y., Kudinov O.B. A very small wave buoy: The challenges learned from a proof-of-concept field experiment//Ocean Engineering.-2026.-Vol. 350.- 124212.-DOI: 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2026.124212.