First Autonomous, Full Scale Survey of US Offshore Wind Farms

While lagging its European counterparts in scale, the US Offshore Wind market is rapidly growing. As of April 2024, four projects are operational, with more to come this same year. However, the development of offshore wind projects has the potential to impact many decades-long scientific surveys part of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) program by excluding areas traditionally covered by these surveys, thus altering their statistical nature. Other potential impacts include direct and indirect habitat change and impacts to sampling strategies, especially given that traditional survey vessels cannot approach as close to wind turbines as needed (due to their size) to accurately conduct its survey. To mitigate these impacts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NOAA NEFSC) has undertaken an extensive survey from an autonomous, uncrewed surface vessel (USV) over a 22 day period in October-November 2023, covering approximately 1200 km<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> around four offshore wind energy areas in eastern United States. The USV was equipped with an extensive payload of navigational sensors as well as an Exail SeapiX Multibeam Echosounder, a Kongsberg EK80 Scientific Echosounder, and a Nortek VM Coastal, the latter based on the Signature500 Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP). This paper presents some of the data collected, with a focus on the current profiling data from the Nortek VM Coastal.