Seven NOAA ship officers and Navigation Response Team members recently received training on UAS operations from Oceans Unmanned and DARTDrones at the NOAA Marine Operations Center in Newport, Oregon.

Conducted over the course of two days, training included classroom instruction, as well as hands-on flights that focused on research and mapping missions conducted from vessels. Students also practiced launch and recovery procedures, and programmed mapping missions from the deck of the NOAA Ship Hi‘ialakai while alongside the marine facility.

“We have multiple years of experience in vessel-based drone operations supporting missions including wildlife surveys, habitat mapping, shallow water shipwreck surveys, and more, and are excited to assist NOAA in utilizing these systems safely and efficiently,” explains Brian Taggart, chief pilot of Oceans Unmanned.

“These relatively inexpensive, off-the-shelf drones, have the capability to support a wide variety of ocean and coastal environmental research projects.”

Oceans Unmanned notes that NOAA is integrating small UAS aboard their survey ships for near-shore and shoreline feature charting, “by supporting or augmenting traditional shoreline verification and mapping techniques used by hydrographic survey field units.”

This requirement could benefit from the use of UAS in several ways, including “improved data collection efficiency compared to data collection from small boats; more accurate feature investigation than traditional techniques; and, most importantly, removal of personnel from potentially dangerous situations.”

The NOAA National Geodetic Survey (NGS) Remote Sensing Division (RSD) supported and funded the training. The division has spent years evaluating and operating UAS to meet coastal mapping requirements.

“RSD has developed much of the internal policies, procedures, and protocols necessary for safe and effective drone field operations for mapping,” says Mike Aslaksen, Chief, NOAA Remote Sensing Division. “And we’re big supporters of getting this technology operational across the NOAA fleet.”