The University of Maine's (UMaine) Advanced Structures and Composites Center unveiled a buoy-based floating LIDAR system to collect deepwater offshore hub height wind measurements in the Gulf of Maine.
Together with NRG Systems, AWS Truepower, UMaine's Physical Oceanography Group (PhOG) and Leosphere SAS, the university established a research and development partnership last October to gather deepwater hub-height wind and other metocean measurements in the Gulf of Maine. UMaine has designed a floating system to house a modified WINDCUBE Offshore LIDAR Remote Sensor, which has been adapted for a dynamic marine environment.
The floating system, which incorporates a proven LIDAR system that detects wind conditions using laser technology up to 200 meters above the ocean surface, is based on buoy technology developed and tested by PhOG over the past decade in the Gulf of Maine and abroad. AWS Truepower will conduct a validation campaign to validate the data collected by the floating system. The buoy is scheduled for deployment on June 1, alongside a one-eighth scale of UMaine's VolturnUS floating offshore wind turbine, the first grid-connected offshore wind turbine in the U.S.
