PORFIDO: Oceanographic data for neutrino telescopes

PORFIDO (Physical Oceanography by RFID Outreach) is a system designed to be installed in the optical modules of the NEMO experiment and possibly, in future underwater neutrino telescopes to gather oceanographic data with a minimum of disturbance to the main project and a very limited budget. The system gathers oceanographic data (temperature, etc.) from passive RFID tags (WISPs) attached to the outside of the NEMO optical modules with an RF reader situated inside the glass sphere, without the need of connectors or penetrators, which are very expensive and offer low reliability. Ten PORFIDOs will be deployed with the NEMO Phase 2 tower in 2011.