Performance Assessment of Indian Meteorological Ocean Buoys With INSAT Telemetry

This paper assesses the reliability of data reception of the offshore moored Indian meteorological buoys equipped with INSAT telemetry and used for monitoring the Indian seas. Based on 11,952 data transmissions spanning 4.2 buoy-years, the data reception performance of the INSAT-based telemetry system is found to be 98.74%, with a corresponding data mean time to failure (MTTF) of 51 h. It is also identified that the moored buoy telemetry hardware conforms to an IEC 61508 Safety Integrity Level 4. The identified reliability results serve as a guideline for offshore system designers using INSAT telemetry. Meteorological data buoys with INSAT telemetry shall provide an opportunity for collecting extensive and cost-effective oceanographic data, which are used for improving the effectiveness of the Indian Ocean monitoring programs and for cost-effective integrity management of critical systems used for tsunami early warnings.