Saildrone making ocean exploring and surveying more sustainable

Futurride
2 min readMay 24, 2021
Saildrone making ocean exploring and surveying more sustainable

The company’s uncrewed surface vehicles — powered by harvesting renewable energy with robust sensor suites — deliver capabilities at a fraction of the cost and carbon footprint of traditional ships for pioneering missions like weather prediction and global carbon budgeting.
Alameda, CA-based USV (uncrewed surface vehicle) startup Saildrone is on a mission to conduct oceanographic research to gain insight into the impact of the Gulf Stream on weather and climate. Partially funded by a grant of over $1 million from Google.org, through its Impact Challenge on Climate, Saildrone’s Explorer will collect data that has the potential to transform weather forecasting and the ability to create more accurate global carbon budgets.

“Weather is becoming more extreme, and as a society, we must get better and smarter at predicting it in order to protect our communities,” said Rowan Barnett, head of Google.org for EMEA and APAC. “We are enthusiastic about the potential for this project to leverage technology to contribute towards that goal.”

Saildrone’s ambitious project will launch six USVs from Newport, RI, that will spend 12 months traversing the Gulf Stream at various points across the Atlantic Ocean. The mission will collect critical data at a resolution not possible previously, yielding new insights into the transport of heat and carbon around oceans.

“We are delighted to be collaborating with Google on th
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