Uncrewed surface vehicles offer the key to new frontiers in ocean science

The global ocean covers 71 percent of the planet. Across these vast spaces, interactions between the ocean and atmosphere are primary drivers of Earth’s weather, climate, and marine productivity. Satellites, instrumented moorings, and infrequent ship-borne research missions have revealed much about these interactions, but large areas of the ocean are significantly undersampled. To fill in the gaps, scientists have increasingly turned to an array of Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USV), some of which can navigate tens of thousands of kilometres to capture key observations autonomously. Most rely upon renewable energy from wind, waves, and the sun for propulsion and to power their sensors and telemetry systems