World’s First Autonomous Ocean Mapping Mission of Alaska Completed

On March 7, Saildrone formally accomplished its months-long autonomous ocean flooring survey round Alaska and California. The survey is a part of a wider initiative to discover beforehand unmapped oceans through the use of uncrewed floor automobiles (USVs). 

Mission Scope

Between August and October 2022, the Saildrone Surveyor SD 1200 mapped 4,739 sq. nautical miles of beforehand unknown seafloor round Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. The Aleutian area is infamous for extreme climate that forestalls most crewed survey vessels from coming into. The Surveyor, nonetheless, was in a position to safely acquire high-quality knowledge, even whereas going through 35-knot winds and wave swells over 16 toes. 

As Saildrone’s Vice President of Ocean Mapping, Brian Connon, illustrated, “Mapping within the Aleutians shouldn’t be trivial, and the circumstances there may be austere any time of 12 months. The Surveyor weathered the storms, collected high-resolution bathymetry, and put no people in danger…That is the way forward for ocean mapping.”

Through the second half of the mission from November till March, the ocean drone mapped an extra 8,665 sq. nautical miles off of the coast of California. Notably, it found a beforehand unknown seamount. The seamount stands at roughly 3,2000 toes excessive, which is bigger than the world’s tallest constructing, the Burj Khalifa. Discovering seamounts like this improves our understanding of the ocean’s bodily features and identifies habitats that require additional exploration. 

All through the mission, the Surveyor additionally sampled environmental DNA due to know-how from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Analysis Institute. The Environmental Pattern Processor allowed the ocean drone to gather clues about marine biodiversity and ocean well being from the genetic “fingerprints” that marine life leaves behind.

Ocean Surveying & USVs

This survey is a part of a multi-agency public-private partnership funded by the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration to map, discover, and characterize america Unique Financial Zone, which runs from the shore to 200 toes onshore. Mapping oceans in missions like this present a substantial amount of data.

As Connon explains, “Ocean mapping is necessary not just for the protection of navigation but additionally for shielding our marine sources and understanding how the ocean impacts our lives…from oil spill response to sustainable fisheries administration.” 

Through the use of USVs and drone know-how, ocean exploration gaps in distant areas may be addressed safely and extra cost-effectively. The info the USVs acquire can be mixed with a conventional survey ship to broaden present operations. For instance, the info collected by Surveyor on this mission might be used to optimize dive targets throughout upcoming expeditions on NOAA’s ship Okeanos Explorer. 

Saildrone’s Fleet

The Saildrone Surveyor is the world’s largest uncrewed ocean mapping automobile, and DS 1200 is the primary of Saildrone’s Surveyor class automobiles. To fulfill the rising international demand for uncrewed survey automobiles, 4 extra surveyor-class ocean mapping automobiles are being inbuilt 2023. 

Saildrone’s fleet of autonomous USVs is powered by renewable vitality and solar energy. Thus far, Saildrone automobiles have sailed over 900,000 nautical miles from the Arctic to the Antarctic, spending greater than 24,000 days at sea. As an organization, Saildrone makes use of proprietary software program purposes and machine studying know-how to remodel the collected ocean knowledge into actionable insights and intelligence.