Saildrone embarks on first ocean mapping survey of Florida’s coastal waters

Saildrone is launching two ten-metre Saildrone Voyager uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) from its St. Petersburg, FL facility, beginning a mapping mission as part of the Florida Seafloor Mapping Initiative (FSMI). This multi-year effort is focused on providing stakeholders across the state with accessible, high-resolution seafloor data of Florida’s coastal waters within the continental shelf.

At 2,170 kilometres long, Florida’s coastline is second only to Alaska’s among US states. Many parts of the Florida coast remain unsurveyed, with existing nautical charts relying on outdated and low-resolution data. The goal of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) initiative is to provide updated mapping data of coastal systems, which is critical for protecting offshore infrastructure, habitat mapping, restoration projects, emergency response, coastal resilience and hazard studies for the state’s citizens.

“Saildrone is proud to support the Florida Seafloor Mapping Initiative with our unique and innovative Voyager USVs. As a member of the St. Petersburg community, we are excited to contribute to a project that seeks to improve our coastal resilience and enhance our ability to predict storm surge impacts by providing high-resolution bathymetry,” said Brian Connon, Saildrone vice president ocean mapping. “Saildrone USVs efficiently and safely collect high-resolution bathymetric data while minimizing environmental impact.”

Understanding Florida’s coastal vulnerability

Saildrone has been tasked with collecting high-resolution multibeam data in a region known as Middle Grounds. For the mission, valued at US$1.66M, Saildrone will map 2,817 square kilometres of seafloor, approximately 130 kilometres north-west of St. Petersburg.

This is the first time that Saildrone has deployed Voyager USVs, equipped with Norbit Winghead i80s echosounders for high-resolution mapping, and radar, AIS and cameras for maritime domain awareness, out of Tampa Bay. In 2024, Saildrone Voyagers were used to map a portion of the Gulf of Maine to identify deep-water coral habitat. In Florida, Saildrone has previously deployed Voyager USVs for the US 4^th Fleet out of Key West and currently has a fleet of Voyager USVs operating in the Caribbean in support of Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S) and US Naval Forces Southern Command/US Navy 4^th Fleet.

FSMI builds on the efforts of the Florida Coastal Mapping Program (FCMaP), an initiative led by federal and Florida state agencies and other community stakeholders to promote the need for a comprehensive high-resolution seafloor dataset of Florida’s coastal waters by 2028. The data will be available to update navigational charts and identify navigation hazards and provide fundamental baseline data for scientific research and information for use by emergency managers and responders.

The data that Saildrone collects will help better understand Florida’s coastal vulnerability and hurricane impact, evaluate the performance of restoration projects, and support ongoing coastal resilience efforts and flood risk mapping.