By Kitch Kennedy • Brian Connon

The journey of remote ocean mapping using USVs has accelerated rapidly over the past decade, driven by necessity and innovation. Ocean mapping is critical for managing marine resources, ensuring safe navigation and understanding climate change. Yet, vast areas of the seafloor remain uncharted. USVs are exponentially expanding our understanding of the ocean floor.

At the forefront of USV innovation is Saildrone, a company that began with a vision of sustainable maritime data collection and has since become one of the world’s premier providers of autonomous ocean mapping vehicles. From the initial development of the solely wind-powered Explorer to the more sophisticated fleet of Surveyor- and Voyager-class vehicles, Saildrone has continually adapted to challenges, integrated cutting-edge technologies and reshaped the ocean mapping landscape. This article highlights the evolution of remote ocean mapping through the lens of Saildrone, detailing how the company addressed the inherent challenges of autonomous bathymetry and steadily developed into a trusted partner for defense, commercial, and scientific stakeholders.

Mission History

Saildrone began building and deploying small USVs in 2013 to collect critical ocean, weather, and climate data. The Saildrone Explorer USVs, powered by wind for propulsion and solar for onboard systems, offered more than 12 months of endurance, an unprecedented capability within the autonomous surface vehicle industry. These vehicles were truly disruptive, offering for the first time an affordable, environmentally friendly solution for persistent data collection in the most remote ocean regions. From the Arctic to the Antarctic, the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, the Saildrone Explorer provided a unique capability for researchers around the world.

Saildrone’s early success, especially on missions for NOAA, resulted in a project at the University of Southern Mississippi to evaluate a Saildrone Explorer as an ocean mapping platform. Explorers had conducted some single-beam sonar mapping, but this proof of concept was focused on a Saildrone USV outfitted with multibeam sonar to provide high-quality bathymetric data.

In order to prove the concept, a Saildrone Explorer would need to conduct a series of offshore mapping projects demonstrating the ability to collect high-quality data, drive straight survey lines, determine power limitations and management techniques, and integrate a system to collect sound velocity profiles.

Over two years, Saildrone successfully conducted a number of mapping demonstrations off the coasts of Mississippi and California that proved the concept and identified a number of challenges to be addressed in order for a Saildrone USV to be considered a viable ocean mapping platform. These challenges included power generation to support high-consumption sensors, such as sonar, and advanced computing; the need for an integrated winch with a sound velocity profiler (SVP); and improved communications to the systems on board.

Surveyor: Purpose-Built for Hydrography

Building on lessons learned, Saildrone set out to design a purpose-built USV capable of supporting high-quality ocean mapping in both deep and shallow waters. Enter the Saildrone Surveyor, a 22-m autonomous vehicle equipped with a full suite of hydrographic instrumentation, including Kongsberg EM 304 and EM 2040 multibeam sonars and the Seapath 330+ positioning and motion reference system.

The working prototype Surveyor featured satellite communications, a profiling CTD winch built in-house for seamless integration with onboard software, and a marine engine designed to provide power and alternative propulsion for the USV.

The development of the Surveyor was made possible through generous philanthropic funding, a testament to the growing recognition of the ocean’s importance and the value of persistent, cost-effective data collection.

To test the Surveyor platform, a roundtrip mapping transit was carried out between California and Hawaii, followed by a three-month deployment to the Aleutian Islands. The success of these missions showcased the potential of uncrewed systems to reach remote and challenging survey regions with minimal human risk and at a fraction of the cost of traditional vessels.

Building on lessons learned during these real-world deployments, Saildrone updated the design of the Surveyor with an improved sensor suite and manufactured five USVs in 2025. One of the highlight missions for the new Surveyor took place in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Cayman Islands, where the vehicle conducted deepwater mapping of 90,000 km² in previously uncharted areas.

 

 

Ocean Mapping Innovation

As Saildrone Surveyor operations matured, new technical hurdles emerged. One significant limitation was the reliance on SVP systems, which require regular data collection to ensure accurate multibeam measurements. Traditional SVP systems, while effective, were constrained by battery life and manual data retrieval. To overcome this, Saildrone partnered with AML Oceanographic to codevelop a solution that would match the operational endurance and autonomy of the Surveyor. The result was a novel, inductively charged SVP instrument with Bluetooth communications, enabling remote operation and hands-free data acquisition. This evolved into a more robust unit featuring Wi-Fi capabilities and automated data transfer, a tool that is now commercially available and used widely outside the Saildrone fleet as well. This collaboration marked an inflection point: Saildrone wasn’t just integrating existing tools; it was helping to advance the ocean mapping technology itself.

Autonomy depends on robust and reliable communication. In early missions, Saildrone used Iridium satellite communications to exchange data with its USVs. While sufficient for basic command and control, the narrow bandwidth created bottlenecks in transmitting large volumes of sonar data or monitoring sonar data collection in real time. These limitations became especially apparent during high-latitude missions, such as Saildrone’s pioneering work in the transits between Alaska and Hawaii and subsequent survey around the Aleutian Islands. The need for broader, more consistent and robust data transmission pathways became clear.

Saildrone responded by integrating a global, high-bandwidth satellite communications system into its vehicles. The result was a transformative leap in capability—the team could offload low-latency data in near real time while remotely monitoring and troubleshooting systems, running diagnostics, and even executing software updates from mission control. This advancement opened new possibilities for live mission planning, adaptive survey strategies and rapid customer engagement, all essential for modern ocean mapping operations.

With the Surveyor successfully addressing deep- and mid-shelf-water mapping, a smaller, more agile platform was needed for coastal environments. Customers sought high-resolution coastal bathymetry and sub-bottom profiling for offshore wind development, habitat mapping, and coastal undersea infrastructure planning and monitoring.

Saildrone answered with the Voyager-class USV, a 10-m vehicle equipped with a NORBIT multibeam echosounder and an integrated sub-bottom profiler. The Voyager was designed for containerized transport, enabling it to be shipped globally in standard 40-ft. containers and launched with minimal shoreside infrastructure. The compact Voyager provides unparalleled flexibility for nearshore survey operations, with applications ranging from critical infrastructure mapping to coastal resilience planning.

 

 

Optimizing Autonomous Survey Workflows

One of Saildrone’s most important evolutions is evident in the development of enhanced mission planning and data visualization tools. As autonomous survey operations became more common, the need for intuitive tools to support planning, monitoring and client interaction grew. Saildrone invested heavily in the user interface and data visualization of its Mission Portal, a web-based platform for planning, tracking, and visualizing survey missions in near real time. Mission Portal enables internal operators and external clients to view tracklines, sonar coverage, environmental overlays, and system status through an intuitive interface. More than a simple dashboard, Mission Portal has become a vital part of the workflow for clients and operators alike. It supports remote mission adjustments, real-time quality control, and collaborative planning, enabling customers to feel connected and in control even when the vehicle is thousands of miles away.

A critical challenge Saildrone faced in its evolution was adapting existing hydrographic data acquisition software for fully autonomous operations. Most commercial acquisition systems were designed with the assumption that a trained human operator would be on board to start lines, monitor data quality and respond to anomalies in real time. This paradigm proved inefficient in a USV context. To overcome the legacy approach to survey operations, Saildrone worked closely with leading sonar manufacturers to streamline and reconfigure acquisition software to support remote operation, autonomous control, and integration with mission planning tools, ultimately enabling watchstanders to monitor multiple platforms simultaneously with confidence in data quality.

Another significant challenge encountered during operations was the biofouling of the SVP sensor, particularly from seaweed and debris. This issue, often difficult to detect without human oversight, was amplified during recent, unprecedented Sargassum blooms in the Caribbean. To address the problem, Saildrone developed enhanced operating procedures and engineered a mechanical solution, an onboard device designed to automatically clear obstructions from the SVP. This innovation eliminated the need for manual intervention and, together with improved software tools, has markedly increased the reliability and quality of data collected during long-duration, fully autonomous missions.

Traditionally, hydrographic data processing required manual retrieval, large file transfers and significant post-mission work. With the advent of Starlink and expanded cloud infrastructure, Saildrone has moved toward real-time data processing as standard. Sonar data collected by the Surveyor and Voyager platforms can be uploaded and processed in near real time using cloud-based tools. This enables early detection of data quality issues, faster project delivery and reduced post-mission workload. Saildrone’s cloud processing pipelines not only provide basic quality assurance but also support customer-defined processing workflows and deliverables. As a result, clients receive preliminary data products during the mission itself, shortening timelines and increasing the agility of hydrographic campaigns.

One of the most novel aspects of utilizing USVs is the use of remote watchstanders. Traditionally, hydrographic surveys required onboard personnel to monitor systems, adjust settings and ensure data quality. In contrast, hydrographers and survey technicians can now operate from anywhere with internet access. They monitor multiple USVs simultaneously, ensuring system health, validating sonar performance and adjusting mission parameters as needed. This remote operations model not only increases efficiency but also expands workforce opportunities. By decoupling operations from physical presence, Saildrone has created roles for hydrographers, data analysts, and technicians who might otherwise be excluded from fieldwork due to geography, caregiving responsibilities, or physical limitations. It’s a model that blends technical excellence with social equity, a rare but powerful combination in the maritime domain.

A Sustainable, Autonomous Mapping Future

As ocean mapping continues to grow in importance for resource management, offshore development, climate science, and national security, the need for persistent, scalable, and sustainable data collection platforms becomes more urgent. Saildrone has demonstrated that with the right mix of innovation, partnerships, and mission focus, it’s possible to overcome technical barriers and build a new kind of mapping fleet: one that’s autonomous, environmentally responsible, and operationally efficient.

A prime example is Saildrone’s recent groundbreaking deep-sea cable route survey for Meta, which proved that USVs can deliver high-quality data for subsea infrastructure planning in the most remote ocean environments. The company’s roadmap includes further integration of AI for adaptive mission planning, expansion of its cloud-based analytics platform, and increased collaboration with government and industry to push autonomous hydrography into the mainstream.

Saildrone’s evolution, from a single proof-of-concept multibeam test to a global fleet of advanced USVs, is more than a technology story. It’s a vision realized, and a clear signal that the future of ocean mapping is here, driven by wind, guided by satellites, and built for a changing world.

 

Kitch Kennedy is the director of ocean mapping at Saildrone.

 

 

Brian Connon is VP of ocean mapping at Saildrone.