The 60-day Saildrone effort to assess stocks of Pacific hake and five coastal pelagic species was carried out in two sub-missions extending the full length of the US west coast, from San Diego to Cape Flattery.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s annual experiment to investigate the diurnal vertical migration included a Saildrone USV equipped with an echo sounder.
Saildrone USVs are operated on a mission-as-a-service model and monitored from Saildrone Mission Control in Alameda, CA.
The Saildrone USV equipped with a ROW sensor is the first platform capable of long-range autonomous oil spill detection in marine environments.
Two concurrent missions will cover some 2,500 kilometers of coastline from San Diego to Vancouver Island.
The 2018 West Coast Fisheries Survey combined the efforts of a NOAA research vessel and a fleet of saildrones to observe and collect data on fish and marine mammals from anchovy to humpback whales.
