Last weekend, a high-tech navigational drone was deployed in the Atlantic Ocean near Charleston, South Carolina, to collect weather data directly from the deadly hurricane.
Known as Saildrone, the autonomous marine drone is a California-based company that designs and operates autonomous marine drones in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to assist the agency in collecting data on hurricanes. Redeployed by Saildrone. . The same sail drone made international headlines in 2021, capturing “the first-ever footage from inside a major hurricane at sea” as Hurricane Sam crossed the Atlantic.
NOAA has used drones in hurricane research before, with an even larger, high-tech squadron due in 2023. The 2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, will feature the largest ever fleet of 12 sail drones deployed in storms in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. I plan to
“The waters off the coast of South Carolina are particularly complex, with a combination of relatively shallow waters and the strong warm currents of the Gulf Stream that power the storms,” said NOAA oceanographer and one of the mission’s principals. One Greg Foltz said. According to a press release provided to FOX News Digital, investigators noted the sail drones deployed over the weekend.
“As hurricanes pass through these warm waters, they often intensify just before they make landfall, so understanding how the ocean interacts with storms in this region is very important.”
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Sail Drone Explorer SD 1045 was redeployed off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina in July. (Sail Drone Co., Ltd.)
U.S. government agencies and the military have spent recent months exploring how technologies such as drones, which typically rely on artificial intelligence and computer vision, to fly autonomously to enhance national security and study natural disasters such as fires and storms. We have repeatedly announced that we are using Sail drones, in particular, use a combination of machine learning and acoustic systems, camera systems and sensor data to record research around the clock.
Sailed drones typically sail for 90 days, and this year two of the new autonomous sailing vessels will remain on land until a rapid deployment is required ahead of a hurricane.
“We are intentionally navigating objects in the midst of one of the most inhospitable and dangerous environments on Earth: a major hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean,” said Matt Wumble of Saildron earlier this year. told New Scientist magazine.
A sail drone in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, in preparation for the 2023 hurricane season. (NOAA AOML)
“After years of looking at the data, we had a lot of questions,” Heather Holbach, deputy director of NOAA’s Hurricane Field Program, told the Bradenton Herald of the study on hurricanes. She said the only way to unravel the mysteries surrounding the storm is to collect data from inside an unmanned vehicle.
“I can’t wait to see where this takes us,” she said.
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NOAA Aircraft Operations Center and Hurricane Hunter aircraft. (NOAA)
According to NOAA’s Greg Foltz, the sail drones will be able to collect unprecedented data during the 2021 and 2022 hurricane seasons, and the expansion of the fleet will allow researchers to “use multiple sail drones in the same hurricane.” It is said that it will be possible to “inject”. Viewing the same storm from different angles can improve storm prediction as ships collect data on sea surface temperature, salinity, surface temperature, humidity, pressure, wind direction and speed, and wave height.
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In a press release about its new hurricane tracking effort, NOAA said, “Unmanned systems and other tools are key to understanding how storms form, grow, and intensify. We collect data at different levels,” he said. “Combined with his NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft equipped with sensors, this data gives scientists a clearer picture of the forces that cause hurricanes.”
Hurricane Ian is seen in this satellite image released by NASA on September 26, 2022. (EOSDIS via AP)
Sailboats can withstand the impact of storms with waves up to 90 feet high and winds over 160 miles per hour. When ships collect data, it feeds directly into hurricane models, enabling researchers to better simulate and predict hurricane physics.
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“Eventually, we hope to refine the model to better predict hurricane intensity,” Folz told the Bradenton Herald.
Altius Drone and Hurricane Hunter Airplane. (NOAA / AOC)
Sailing ships will be joined by another fleet of autonomous data collectors, including small aircraft that can fly through storms and measure temperature, pressure and humidity. NOAA also plans to deploy a new dropsonde, a tubular sensor device that is dropped into a hurricane to measure “atmospheric pressure, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction” as the hurricane falls through the air into the storm. profile” can be captured.
The proliferation of high-tech autonomous machines, at least for now, doesn’t mean NOAA’s famous “hurricane hunters” won’t be flying manned planes through dangerous storms.
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NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division chief meteorologist Joseph Sione said the agency is working on a next-generation “hurricane hunter” aircraft, and that human researchers will continue to fly through storms for years to come. told the Bradenton Herald. But he predicts a “gradual transition” in which only unmanned vehicles will fly into the storm.
