Last week, IFREMER hosted the ARVOR-PROVOR Float Technical Workshop in Brest.
The aim of this workshop was to provide ARVOR and PROVOR Argo float users with extensive technical information and to share best practices. The workshop is being organized by Argo-France and Argo-Canada.

Nke Instrumentation is the manufacturing company of the mostly deployed autonomous profiling floats those last two years. Therefore the team presented our core activity, our latest product innovations and our top priorities.

The three main topics we presented were: the NOSS sensor, the Arvor and Deep profiling floats and the PROVOR CTS5-USEA.

NOSS
The NOSS sensor provides accurate measurement of ocean absolute salinity. It is a unique underwater sensor for in situ refractive index measurement and capable to detect salinity anomalies of seawater.

Arvor and Deep profiling floats
Those profiling floats provide salinity temperature and pressure profiles and can be fitted with a bidirectional iridium communication. The Deep Arvor is able to provide those parameters up to 4,000 meters depth using proven ARGO sensors.

PROVOR CTS5-USEA
This new profiling float developed in collaboration with the LOV is fully BGC-ARGO compliant for R&D and demanding application. It can be fitted with the 6 core BGC ARGO variables and extras such as the underwater vision profiler sensor (UVP6-LP) from Hydroptic that is designed to study large particles and zooplankton simultaneously and to quantify them in a known volume of water.