NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey (OCS) is currently utilizing fully uncrewed contract USVs for an offshore hydrographic survey mission along the Florida Gulf Coast. Operated by Woolpert, the mission is being conducted by Chance Maritime’s Chance MC29 and larger MC40 platforms. The Chance MC40 Chance MC40 Over the multi-month project, Woolpert will survey approximately 11,000 linear nautical miles. Woolpert hydrographers, positioned across multiple time zones, will remotely conduct hydrographic surveys around the clock. Survey data is uploaded to a cloud server via Starlink satellite communications, where it is ingested into Woolpert’s Automatic Survey Production Environment (ASPEN) and made ready for further postprocessing by Woolpert’s hydrographic processing team. In an expansion of the concept, NOAA just awarded Chance a $21.6 million contract for up to eight Chance LR30 platforms, equipping NOAA with a fleet of long-endurance USVs purpose-built for hydrographic and fisheries surveys.…
No comments yet. Log in to reply on the Fediverse. Comments will appear here.