Single Sensors

Aquatic environments are constantly changing. Regardless if you model effects of climate change on a global scale, operate an aquaculture facility, study the impact of human activities in the coastal zone, spreading of pollution, ecosystem changes, or are involved in coastal or off-shore constructions, measurements of relevant water quality parameters are fundamental to understand ongoing changes and risks and make it possible to calibrate and verify mathematical models.

There is a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological sensors. Water sensors in use must be stable over time and provide accurate information. If not, the value of the measurements will be limited. At Aanderaa, we develop long-term stable, accurate Smart Sensors. All water sensors are multipoint calibrated, include high-quality temperature measurements, and convert raw data to calibrated measurements internally on the fly. 

The SeaGuardII and SmartGuard platforms combined with a suite of Aanderaa sensors offer significant flexibility to adapt to different missions. Sensors can be plug-and-play added/removed as desired onto the top plate of an instrument or cable connected or included in sensor strings. The Aanderaa Smart Sensors can also be used with any third-party logger to read serial Rs232 and/or Rs422.


The Real-Time collector software serves to communicate and set up all Aanderaa platforms and smart sensors. It is also used to collect real-time data from multiple sensors and systems simultaneously. If the sensors/instruments are used online, the GeoView or the new Hydrosphere software are often selected for real-time measurements and database storage.


In shallow water, fouling on the sensors might have negative effects on the sensor readings. In high fouling environments, optical sensors like turbidity could have issues already after some days, the conductivity/salinity after a week, the oxygen opcodes after two weeks, while pressure and current sensors, in general, have low fouling sensitivity. To address these issues, we integrate UV light and recommend the usage of copper tape. Please get in touch with us for recommendations.

 

Conductivity/Salinity: Conductivity is a key parameter for the in-situ determination of salinity, density, and speed of sound. The Aanderaa Conductivity Sensors are based on an inductive principle that provides stable measurement without electrodes. The sensors are 132 points calibrated and automatically switch between lower, below ten psu, and higher salinities at which different methods to calculate salinity are used. Experiences from factory re-calibrations reveal that these sensors have a minimal field drift, less than 0.008 mS/cm-year. For field verification of the sensor functioning, a multi-resistor loop is used.


Oxygen Optodes: Most chemical and biological processes are influenced by changes in dissolved oxygen. Consequently, oxygen is a prime parameter to measure in aquatic studies. Aanderaa revolutionized natural water oxygen measurements with the introduction of oxygen optodes in 2002. These sensors' proven long-term stability (years) and reliability have opened new possibilities in coastal and open ocean water monitoring, described in more than 150 scientific publications. The latest developments include new ultra-stable and trace foils. The opcodes are forty-point calibrated with an absolute accuracy better than ±2 % over the whole range of oxygen concentrations and temperatures. Different sensor versions are rated from 100 to 12 000 m depth.

Pressure/Wave/Tide: In 2006, we introduced a new series of compact Pressure/Wave/Tide sensors based on silicon sensing elements, using a piezoresistive measuring principle. These sensors are 20 points calibrated and have demonstrated excellent accuracy (0.01 %), resolution (0.1 mm), and stability (drift less than 0.01 % per year). Also, they consume little energy, can handle shock and can withstand 50% overpressure without damage and the need for re-calibration. These sensors have outperformed quartz pressure sensors in several studies. They are selected in applications ranging from coastal wave measurements to mm movements of the seafloor in seismic areas and off-shore oil and gas applications.

Turbidity: Turbidity is a proxy for water suspended mineralogenic particles like sand, silt, and clay. The combination of turbidity measurements with acoustic backscatter from the Doppler Current Profiling sensor is useful. It gives high-resolution information on the origins and distribution of Particles in the water column.

Currents: Aanderaa offers Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) and Single Point instruments and Stand-alone sensors used in a wide range of applications, from surface buoys to the deepest trenches, to measure currents, waves, and particles.

Waves: At Aanderaa, we have focused on three different methods for spot measurements of waves, including:

  • Motion based waves: MOTUS, a stand-alone motion-based directional wave sensor designed for surface platforms like buoys and autonomous vehicles. 
  • Acoustic Based Waves: Acoustic directional wave sensor mounted below the surface, and use an upward-facing ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiling) to measure directional wave and currents simultaneously.
  • Pressure based wave and tide sensors that are mounted below the surface. 


Integration of sensors from other manufacturers: For parameters that we do not offer, we integrate sensors from different manufacturers to our systems, including EXO units from YSI for shallow water applications with sensors, e.g., pH, Algae, CDOM, ORP/Redox, Blue-green algae, Salinity, Temperature, Oxygen and with a wiper for anti-fouling. For deeper waters, we integrate sensors from other manufacturers. 

 

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Worldwide Representatives for Aanderaa

Aanderaa Oxygen Sensor Cleaning Procedures


Learn how to clean your Aanderaa Oxygen Sensor. You will also gain knowledge on how to check and change the foil.

Aanderaa Oxygen Sensor Foil Change


Learn how to conduct a foil change of the Aanderaa Oxygen Sensor as well as how to implement the new coefficients to the foil using the Real-Time Collector

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AirPressure Compensation and Concoef1 calculation for Oxygen Sensor

Turbidity Sensor

The Aanderaa Turbidity Sensors detects infra-red light scattered by particles suspended in water.

Ocean Waves

Surface waves are formed by winds either locally as "wind waves" with shorter periods, or further away as “swell" with longer periods. A rare case of extremely long period of ocean waves are tsunamis from e.g. earthquakes and landslides. Because ocean waves can travel far and can contain high energy it is important to measure ocean waves to understand their impact on shipping fishing, tourism, constructions, shorelines, water mixing, sediment resuspension, gas exchange etc.

Pressure Based Waves

Measure pressure based Waves with the Aanderaa Wave Sensors- compact fully integrated sensors for measuring wave and tide conditions

Ocean Currents

Ocean water currents are driven by winds, tides and density differences. The ocean circulation regulates the earth's climate by transporting heat. The flowing water affects offshore and coastal construction and also carries particles, animals, plants, nutrients, pollutants and dissolved gases. The acoustic doppler technique has become the preferred technology for most users measuring ocean current, because it is robust, needs no calibrations, can be used for both point (RCM) and profiling (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiling) measurements and is basically insensitive to fouling.