August 25, 2025 — Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used its 25-foot DriX autonomous research vehicle for a 20-day spring mission in southern New England waters, collecting data on fish and plankton within five offshore wind energy areas.
Those wind power projects, like Ørsted’s Revolution Wind 65 turbines south of Rhode Island, are now under severe pressure from the Trump administration’s opposition to all forms of wind and solar generation.
But the amid the turmoil, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers are still learning how the new generation of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles can fill in the margins of ecosystem and fisheries surveys, in areas where it’s more difficult to operate NOAA’s big science ships.
The April 16-May 5 expedition by ocean researchers with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center was the second DriX survey out of Narragansett Bay, R.I., with the probe operating nearly around the clock for nearly three weeks.
“Uncrewed systems have the ability to support various stock and ecosystem assessments through data acquisition, particularly in areas that have traditionally been or are increasingly becoming challenging to sample,” Conor McManus, the Advanced Technology Program lead for the science center, said in a statement. “We are learning more about how marine ecosystems are changing while improving the technology and operations to be able to use it more expansively in the future.”