The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in partnership with the University of Southern Mississippi and with the UK-based robotics company Oshen, launched five small uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) called C-Stars in the waters off the U.S. Virgin Islands on Aug. 31 to collect critical data to better understand hurricane development and activity. The deployment is the latest effort by NOAA to advance data collection to improve hurricane research and forecasting.
Two additional C-Stars will be stored in Gulfport, Miss., and will be ready for launch ahead of actively developing storms in the U.S. Gulf this fall.
“Understanding weather conditions where the ocean surface meets the lower atmosphere is key to predicting hurricane intensity,” Greg Foltz, oceanographer for NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), said “If these miniature uncrewed surface vehicles prove reliable, they could become a critical piece of NOAA’s hurricane observing system in the future.”
NOAA has been expanding the use of uncrewed aircraft and marine systems to collect and use high-accuracy and time-sensitive data across its mission. These systems are a force multiplier for NOAA — supplementing NOAA’s traditional methods of data collection often at lower cost, increased safety and reduced risk, especially in remote or extreme environments. A diverse array of uncrewed systems are already used in seabed mapping, marine mammal and fishery stock assessments, emergency response, including tornado damage assessments, and at-sea observations that improve forecasting of extreme events, such as hurricanes, harmful algal blooms and hypoxia.
The C-Star was developed by Oshen, which builds constellations of hand-deployable robots for ocean data collection. C-Stars operate individually or in fleets to provide coverage over wide ocean areas. Wind-propelled with solar-powered sensors, C-Stars transmit real-time data on wind speed and direction, sea surface temperature, air temperature, air pressure and relative humidity via satellite for forecasters and scientists. C-Stars are also equipped with electric motor thrusters to improve positioning to intercept a hurricane or when winds are weak. Wave condition data, high-resolution images and movies will be available once the C-Stars are recovered.
Oshen mission specialists in the UK will remotely pilot the 4' fiberglass USVs, which look like small sailboats, working with NOAA scientists at AOML in Miami and NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab (PMEL) in Seattle to position them ahead of hurricanes. They will operate experimentally over the next two months, transmitting near-real-time data which will be automatically received, processed and distributed by PMEL to the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Telecommunications System, making it available to forecast centers globally.
