Seatrec Launches infiniTE™ Float, a First-Of-Its-Kind Modular Platform with “Plug-and-Play” Sensors Powered by the Ocean’s Temperature Differences

Unprecedented flexibility from clean, renewable power greatly expands the use of sensors required for seafloor mapping and soundscape study along with the ability to generate up to 3 profiles per day to unlock improved hurricane rapid-intensification forecasting 

 

SAN DIEGO (Feb. 14, 2023) – Seatrec, a renewable energy company that harvests energy from temperature differences in the environment, today announces the launch of its infiniTE™ Float. The first-of-its-kind modular platform features the ability to mix and match an expanded array of power-hungry sensors – some never before supported by autonomous profiling floats – by generating clean, renewable electricity from the ocean’s temperature differences. 

The announcement comes on the opening day of the Oceanology International Americas event in San Diego. 

“Power limitations remain a key challenge to critical ocean research,” explains Yi Chao, Ph.D., the CEO and Founder of Seatrec, who is a panelist at the event’s Ocean Observation and Sensing 1 Session. “Our next-generation infiniTE™ floats solve that problem in a sustainable way and unlock the future of oceanographic research by facilitating long-term, data-gathering deployments that were previously impossible.”

Seatrec’s pioneering energy harvesting system harnesses temperature differences between the ocean’s various depths to drive the phase change of specific materials. These materials contract and expand creating pressure that’s captured and converted into electricity. The clean, virtually limitless power frees scientists to use sensors that typically require shore-supplied power or direct ship support via tethering. 

The infiniTE™ float platform’s “plug-and-play” modularity vertically integrates different sensors tailored to particular areas of study. 

Hurricane Forecasting

Better understanding the rapid intensification of major storms and hurricanes is a particularly pressing goal as annual economic losses from such storms are estimated at $54B. Legacy floats typically only profile once every 10 days, which is insufficient to measure the intensification of storms that can surge in as little as 24 hours. Seaterc’s infiniTE™ floats are able to sample as frequently as three times per day providing 30x more data than its competition.

Seafloor Mapping

Only 20% of the global seafloor is mapped by in-water sensors with high resolution and mapping the remaining 80% using ships is estimated to cost as much as $3B. Echosounders are impossible to mount on legacy floats because of power limitations. Seatrec’s power generation technology clears the way for the use of low-cost floats to conduct bathymetry surveys at depth, autonomously, and at a fraction of the cost of using ships. 

Soundscape Monitoring

Studies show that noise from humans adversely affects a broad range of organisms, including marine mammals. Hydrophones are needed to quantify the impact of these noises on marine mammals. Hydrophones mounted on Seatrec’s infiniTE™ floats provide an inexpensive, autonomous platform to gather soundscape data at varying depths for years at a time. 

The launch of the infiniTE™ Float Platform follows on the heels of a notable year of partnerships for Seatrec. The Naval Postgraduate School recently partnered with Seatrec to study the ocean soundscape and chart the impact of noise pollution on Blue Whales by using a hydrophone-equipped infiniTE™ float. Also, Seatrec and The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project signed an MOU to launch Project NEMO (Novel Echosounder to Map the Ocean) to map the gaps of the global seafloor in remote areas where it is too costly for ships to access.

For information about the only cost-effective and sustainable solution on the market, visit www.seatrec.com.

About Seatrec

Seatrec designs and manufactures energy harvesting systems that generate electricity from naturally occurring temperature differences in ocean waters. This renewable energy can be used to power deep water oceanographic research equipment such as floats, gliders, and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), resulting in the most scalable, cost-effective deep ocean data collection possible. Incorporated in 2016 by CEO, Dr. Yi Chao, Seatrec’s technology originated at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, to provide clean power for remote off-grid locations. The company is headquartered in Vista, CA. Visit us at www.seatrec.com and @seatrecinc.

 

Media Contact

Sean Yokomizo

Seatrec, Inc.

sean.yokomizo@seatrec.com

+1 925.878.1200

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