CLEVELAND, Ohio — There’s a bright-red, submarine-shaped robot boat that’s been sailing through Lake Erie to collect data. And it could be the key to understanding more about lakes and oceans.
The strange-looking vessel is the DriX-12, an uncrewed surface vessel owned by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration. It can sail without any crew members, can work for days at a time, and has specialized instruments used to map sea floors and to search for fish and other sea creatures.
It’s been in Lake Erie since late August working with the “Thomas Jefferson,” one of NOAA’s hydrographic survey vessels. The TJ and its crew have been mapping the lake bed in the Cleveland area and near South Bass Island since April.
The DriX isn’t the first autonomous vessel NOAA has used, but it’s one of the best, explained Capt. Bill Mowitt, deputy director of NOAA’s uncrewed system operations center. He and Rob Downs, the chief of the hydrographic systems and technology branch, said it’s a force multiplier for this kind of work.
“We’ve been looking for the right teammate for our ships,” Mowitt said. “We think this will be the right one.”
This kind of work could use help, because the world’s oceans and lakes are largely unmapped, at least by modern standards.
As of January, 93% of the 45,100 square nautical miles in the Great Lakes were unmapped, according to NOAA. In the last few years, NOAA has collected over 1,100 square nautical miles of data within the Great Lakes.
DriX’s ability to work without a crew and around the clock is what makes it special, Downs said.
The 208-foot TJ and DriX both have a multi-beam sonar that can make 3D maps of the sea floor.
With a 38-person crew, the TJ can work 24 hours a day. It typically carries two 29-foot boats that it can launch into the sea, with the same sensors. This way all three boats cover more ground.
The difference? The TJ’s smaller boats can work a 12-hour day max. The unmanned DriX can work for up to five days before it needs to be refueled.
While it can work completely on its own, Downs said the crew is using it in semi-autonomous mode. Crew onboard the TJ will supervise it as it works.
Replacing just one 29-foot boat with a DriX can cover 40% more area, Downs said.
NOAA has used different versions of self-sailing vessel for about 10 years, but they lacked key attributes. Downs said the DriX has the speed, reliability and endurance needed to make a good partner for the TJ.
The DriX arrived in August and is scheduled to leave Lake Erie by the end of September.
Mowitt said they need to crawl before they can walk and walk before they can run. The first half of the month was crawling, learning how to use the DriX.
Now they’re in the walk-phase, he said. The TJ crew recently used it for 32-hours straight.
NOAA got to test out the DriX in 2019, but the one in Lake Erie is the first the agency has owned, getting delivered to NOAA in July.
After Lake Erie, it’s headed to New Hampshire to train with another crew. The Drix also has an echo sounder, which it can use to measure find marine life in a body of water. Next summer, the Drix will spend part of its summer near Alaska, searching for marine life.
NOAA bought the DriX for about $2 million. Downs said this exhibition will help NOAA decide if it should buy more DriXs or other uncrewed vessels in the future.
The Drix was made by a French company called iXblue that makes highly specialized devices for the space, maritime and defense industries. Marine Slingue, the company’s vice president for North America, said the vessel is made for ocean agencies worldwide to use for their surveying.
It can sail completely on its own, or with supervision. Sailors can also take over the DriX completely and sail it remotely. She said it first hit the market in 2017.
The submarine-like shape allows the Drix to cut through the water and be less affected by waves. Slingue said they didn’t want it to move like a ball in the ocean.
It could be a game changer, she said. The Drix is much cheaper than a research-ship like the TJ and can speed up the surveying of the ocean and lakes. Right now, much of the ocean floor is a mystery.
“The ocean is not mapped at all,” she said. “We know more about the moon than we know about our own ocean.”
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