Icoteq

17/07/2024

Terror has now been at sea for over a year following the circumpolar current in the Southern Ocean!

Having travelled 9338km, Terror has completed just over 25% of the total circumpolar journey and is showing signs of the harsh conditions at sea. Camera images have degraded throughout the year as the lens became increasingly contaminated. There hasn't been an image update at all for the last 2 months likely due to a combination of the light sensor being blocked by marine growth and the Antarctic midwinter resulting in short days and low light levels.

Nevertheless, the ARGOS satellite transmitter is going strong, giving us several position locations throughout the day so we can experience the curious twists and turns of the journey as the boat succumbs to the currents, winds and storms on the journey.

Due to a major satellite constellation upgrade recently, the tracker has had to move to a different transmission algorithm Icoteq built in to the software design for just this eventuality. This new algorithm is less efficient on the battery due to the loss of satellite position predictions, meaning the tracking device has to transmit more often, even when there may not be a satellite available to receive the message. Battery levels remain strong however and will keep the reporting going for a long time yet!

Terror has now been at sea for over a year following the circumpolar current in the Southern Ocean! Having travelled 9338km, Terror has completed just over 25% of the total circumpolar journey and is showing signs of the harsh conditions at sea. Camera images have degraded throughout the year as the...

09/01/2024

6 months after launching, Terror has travelled nearly 5000km and has just crossed the prime meridian passing into the eastern hemisphere!
Camera images are still coming in, though the lens is getting increasingly contaminated and spoiling the view for us all!
A remarkable journey already, Terror has cover around 44 degrees of longitude, or 12% of the total circumpolar journey, so there's still a long way to go.
The batteries are looking strong so barring any devastating incidents we're confident the boat will keep going for several years at this rate.

Follow this amazing journey at https://www.icoteq.com/project-erebus/

23/11/2023

It's been a long couple of years in the development but we're delighted to finally launch our TagRanger® system, a completely novel way of tracking, monitoring and 'finding' animals with no network costs or infrastructure required. Carry your own communication gateway paired with your mobile phone to operate in even the most remote locations!

ICOTEQ announce the launch of their TagRanger® system of products
TagRanger® is a state-of-the-art wildlife finding, monitoring and tracking solution for research, conservation and environmental professionals.
With superior configurability for logging data, reporting location and engaging in GPS-beating ranging technology, TagRanger® will direct you to the exact Tag location with a precision that gets you within touching distance (‘Finding’).
Find out more and buy online at https://www.tagranger.com/

21/08/2023

After nearly 6 weeks in the Southern Ocean Terror blasted through the 1000km mark on her journey around the Southern Ocean! Sadly there is still no sign of Erebus, considered damaged during a storm a few weeks ago but is still hopefully shadowing Terror's journey. The telemetry from Terror is looking good with battery, temperature and satellite comms in good working order! 19000km to go!

07/08/2023

Update on Erebus: It's been nearly 4 full days now since we've had any communications from Erebus. There was no indication at the last transmision that anything was amiss, and the battery level was good. The sea temperature probe had gone a bit crazy and our deduction was that it had failed either by physical damage or water ingress to the interconnect between the sensor head and the tracking unit. However, we have run some test here and there is no mechanism for the faulty sensor to affect the operation of the rest of the tracker.
We've checked with the satellite network provider and it seems there are no issues with the backend server.
We believe there are three possibilites for the transmissions to have failed, in order of most likely they are:
1. Catastrophic damage to the antenna, most likely by impacting with an iceberg in heavy seas.
2. Obstruction of the antenna; If the boat has become tangled in seaweed for example which obscures the antenna, or is holding the boat on its side or upside down then the antenna could be blocked.
3. Failure of the electronics. Seems the least likely as the electronics were long term tested prior to deployment and are encased in solid resin for protection. There are no large swings in temperature to stress the circuitry.
Right now we can only hope for option 2 as this has the potential to clear itself over time.

03/08/2023

Join Erebus and Terror for the first 500km of their Southern Ocean Adventure!
(I don't think it's really been this sunny...)
https://www.icoteq.com/project-erebus/

26/07/2023

We now have a 3D map option (for those with slightly more powerful computers...), let us know what you think!

Click and drag to move around, CTRL+click and drag to change the view.
https://www.icoteq.com/project-erebus/

26/07/2023

Sunrise this morning in the Southern Ocean

21/07/2023

The last pixel of the first camera image taken from Erebus in the Southern Ocean arrived today! It only took 9 days to send this image over the ARGOS satellite network, and we're not aware of anyone else that has achieved this from a small autonomous tracker deployed in the wild!

20/07/2023

Nice write up in the Polar Journal!

Thanks to the dediocation of two brothers in Scotland, the two famous ships Erebus and Terror are once again sailing in the Southern Ocean and taking scientific data.

20/07/2023

Dank dem Eifer und Einsatz von zwei Brüdern in Schottland segeln die beiden Schiffe Erebus und Terror wieder im Südlichen Ozean und nehmen wissenschaftliche Daten auf.

19/07/2023

We've just hit the first 100km mark!
https://www.icoteq.com/project-erebus/