For years, users of oceanographic equipment have been packing up their instruments and shipping them back for annual recalibration.The diagram below paints a clear picture of how complicated, expensive and time-consuming this process can be.  Returning instruments for recall is the status quo not because it makes sense, but because nobody has thought of a better way. 

Until now!  Doesn’t it make more sense to have calibrated sensor heads delivered to your instrument – when and where you need them - rather than shipping your entire instrument to a calibration centre? AML Oceanographic field-swappable sensors enable just that. 

Field-swappable sensor-heads promise to dramatically alter the way that users interact with their instruments.  Read on...or review our discussion paper The Six  Advantages of Field-Swappable Sensors or contact sales@AMLoceanographic.com for more information.

There are 6 primary advantages to the use of field-swappable sensor-heads.  These include:

1. Elimination of instrument downtime - that time when the instrument cannot be used because it is enroute from the vesel to recalibration, at the service centre for recalibration, or enroute to the vessel from recalibration;
2. A reduction in transportation and logistics costs - shipping, couriers, duties, and brokerage fees - related to shipping instruments back for recalibration;
3. Increased flexibility for service managers, because a recalibration becomes a mobile asset, one that can be plugged into whichever instrument most urgently requires it..Field-swappable sensor-heads enable any organization - big or small - to become a virtual recalibration centre, simply by virtue of its ability to stock calibrated sensor-heads.;
   
4. Multi-range instruments - the ability to change sensor range on any instrument on- the- fly to suit specific deployment requirements.  This - in turn - means instrument duplicates (identical instrument but dedicated to a different pressure range) become a thing of the past;
   
5. Improvements in absolute pressure accuracy, resulting from the user's ability to tighten the dbar full scale of pressure measurement of any oceanographic instrument; and
   
6. Greater system redundancy resulting from increased ease of deploying spare sensors into the field.
   

What exactly is a field-swappable sensor-head?  Essentially, it is a sensor with an embedded board inserted into the stem of the sensor.   All electronics related to sensor operation are located in the sensor-head, including components that provide signal and power conditioning.  Memory is also placed in the sensor-head to allow for the storage of calibration coefficients and other critical calibration information.  With calibration coefficients on board, the sensor can be swapped from instrument to instrument.  To date, AML Oceanographic has introduced four such field-swappable sensor-heads:

1. SV•Xchange™ (Time-of-Flight Sound Velocity), introduced in April of 2008 (second from left in above picture)
   
2. P•Xchange™ (Pressure), introduced in April of 2009 (second from right in above picture)
   
3. C•Xchange™ (Conductivity), now in field-testing and planned for release at the end of 2009 (far right in above picture)
   
4. T•Xchange™ (Temperature), now in field-testing and planned for release at the end of 2009 (far left in above picture)