Year
2015–2018
Operation Area
Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea
Purpose
Saildrone began a partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to develop and refine the Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) sensor suite for high-quality oceanic and atmospheric data collection. In 2015, a series of missions to the US Arctic was launched as part of the Innovative Technology for Arctic Exploration (ITAE) program.
Annual missions were performed 2015 – 2018 focusing on a range of science objectives: studies of sea surface temperature and salinity (2015); acoustic fisheries surveys (2016 – 2018) and examination of the marine predator/prey relationship of northern fur seals (2016 – 2017); tracking the elusive North Pacific right whale (2016 – 2017), and studying air-sea carbon fluxes (2017 – 2018).
Results
This series of missions gathered measurements to identify ongoing changes to the Arctic ecosystem and how those changes may affect the food-chain as well as large-scale climate and weather systems, as well as explored the capabilities and limitations of the Saildrone platform.
In 2016, the Saildrone USVs spent 65 days tracking foraging northern fur seals, including several focal follows, during which the USVs followed tagged animals for more than 80 hours and 210 kilometers (130.5 miles). Researchers attached video cameras on the seals to record feeding behavior and verify the species and sizes of fish the fur seals are eating, which was combined with Saildrone data to better understand this declining population.
