OECI Multi-Vehicle Ocean Exploration Showcases Power of Collaboration
Our NA155 expedition was a successful example of ocean exploration collaboration! Our multi-vehicle exploration of Geologist Seamounts featured the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography’s Deep Autonomous Profiler Lander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s HROV Mesobot, and the University of New Hampshire’s USV DriX, all hosted by Ocean Exploration Trust’s E/V Nautilus.
Working together, Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute (OECI) partners streamlined communication, mapping, and sample-collecting efforts in this relatively unstudied region of the Central Pacific. This video highlights some of the incredible teamwork from this expedition: different institutions with vehicles built with different tools that - working together - have expanded what we know about the biodiversity of the Geologist Seamounts and how we can learn in the future. As the OECI partners work to expand the agility and efficiency of ocean exploration, multi-vehicle operations will continue to help us look at unexplored and underexplored areas of the deep ocean in new ways.
OECI Multi-vehicle Exploration
Over the last three years OET has been working with partners from Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute (OECI) to integrate emerging exploration technologies to enhance ocean exploration.