Best Paper Award REVOLUTIONIZING ROUTE SURVEYS WITH LOWCARBON, UNCREWED PLATFORMS: INSIGHTS FROM THE 2024 NORTH ATLANTIC DEEP-WATER SAILDRONE DEMONSTRATION BY ANDY PALMER-FELGATE AND KITCH KENNEDY ABSTRACT:
In 2024, Meta and Saildrone collaborated to evaluate the capabilities of the 20-meter Saildrone Surveyor Uncrewed Surface Vehicle (USV ) during a 26-day demonstration in the North Atlantic, covering 4,500 km (plus 2,000 km of transit) without any port calls or outside assistance. Conducted in June and July, the demonstration took place along previously surveyed cable routes, thus allowing for direct comparisons in terms of progress rates, line keeping, data quality, and coverage. Water depths ranged from 900 m to 5,500 m, with the latest Kongsberg EM304 MKII multibeam sonar used to capture seabed data over a swathe of up to 10 km in width. Metrics on fuel consumption and environmental impact demonstrated greenhouse gas emissions were more than 50 times lower than that of a conventional survey vessel over the same distance1. A Starlink satellite link was used for real-time data analysis and communications. This paper will discuss the advantages of Saildrone’s wind-assisted, unmanned platform, which could potentially revolutionize deep-water route surveying. It will also discuss the future developments necessary to meet the demands of subsea telecommunications projects.
consumption sensors. This precluded them from observing the deep ocean seafloor. The Saildrone Surveyor is the first in a new generation of uncrewed surface vehicles (USV ) engineered for deep-ocean mapping and environmental data collection. Measuring 20 meters (65 feet) in length, it stands as the largest USV in Saildrone’s fleet, designed to autonomously conduct extended offshore missions (of up to three months) while gathering high-resolution bathymetric data. Equipped with a Kongsberg EM 2040 and EM 304 multibeam sonar systems, an acoustic Doppler current profiler, and a suite of environmental sensors, the Surveyor canmap the seafloor to depths of up to 11,000 meters. The Saildrone Mission Portal (Figure 2) is a web-based
1. AUTONOMOUS SURFACE VEHICLE SURVEY CAPABILITY
Uncrewed Surface Vehicles have been deployed for over a decade to perform various marine data collection and surveillance operations. Their capability has until now been restricted to carrying relatively small payloads and low power
Figure 1. Saildrone Surveyor
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