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Ocean robots help NOAA assess fishery health
Two unmanned sailboats set out from Neah Bay on Tuesday, beginning a 100-day trek that will take them to Vancouver Island and all the way down to Mexico. Fisheries scientists with the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) hope that these Saildrones will help them better assess key Pacific fisheries such as hake, anchovies, and sardines. Chris Meinig is featured.
The captainless research vessel
The regular patrons of the White Shark Café have had some company lately. In March, two autonomous robots, called Saildrones, departed from California en route to the “Café,” a mysterious stretch of water in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the sharks are known to congregate. Jessica Cross and Meghan Cronin are quoted.
These ocean drones are trawling for climate change data
A fleet of unmanned boats is traveling from the Arctic to the equator, gathering vital data on climate change.
The autonomous vessels -- called "Saildrones" -- resemble bright red surfboards. Each is fitted with a 20-foot-high carbon fiber sail, and 16 sensors that test variables including carbon dioxide, acidity, currents and water temperature.
Sailboat-Like Drone Helps NOAA Study the Arctic Ecosystem
Drones are changing the way we look at coastlines. In a conference call on Thursday about the use of drones in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jessica N. Cross, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, talked about the use of Saildrone, a sailboat-sized, commercially produced UAV in monitoring populations of fish and other information about the changing oceans in the Arctic.
Unmanned ‘Saildrones’ Depart Once Again from Dutch Harbor on Bering Sea Data-Gathering Mission
The innovative Saildrones, developed by Saildrone Inc, have once again been deployed to the Bering Sea, taking the place of manned vessels to gather information from areas that are generally inaccessible to full-sized research vessels, and are able to operate in a more cost-effective way.