Advanced Technologies

Some ocean creatures are difficult to study because they live in remote habitats or have complex life cycles. And to study unique creatures, sometimes scientists need to use unique tools. Our scientists use a range of advanced technologies to gather and analyze data and better understand the science behind healthy ecosystems and marine life.

It’s important to remember that all photos and technologies used to track and research marine animals are conducted under permits granted by NOAA Fisheries, and should not be attempted by the public.

Some of these technologies and techniques include:

• Uncrewed systems, such as autonomous underwater vehicles 
• Optics
• Acoustic monitoring
• Remote sensing
• Genetics

Collecting data to support NOAA Fisheries’ mission requires sampling more than 4.3 million square miles of water in the U.S. exclusive economic zone and beyond. Crewed NOAA vessels and aircraft are critical for gathering high-quality information. Uncrewed systems like gliders can supplement these traditional methods of data collection. They can reduce risks, decrease costs, and allow us to access remote or challenging to reach places—all of which expands our ability to conduct important research.

There are three kinds of uncrewed systems:

• Subsurface uncrewed systems, such as gliders, are mostly used to monitor the physical environment. For example, they can be used to survey and map seafloor habitats.
• Uncrewed surface vehicles can cover large areas and are often used to collect sonar data during fisheries surveys.
• Uncrewed aerial vehicles make measurements and obtain samples that contribute to the conservation and management of marine mammals.

Uncrewed systems can be used by NOAA Fisheries scientists for long-term surveys, marine mammal surveys, and monitoring offshore development and emerging threats and events like marine heat waves.

For example, scientists from NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center use special uncrewed aerial vehicles—which are roughly the size of a hubcap—to take pictures of leopard seals in Antarctica. These drones can take off vertically and hover motionlessly; they are equipped with high-resolution digital cameras. 

From these photos, scientists can measure the length and width of individual animals and then generate estimates of their weight. By monitoring weight gain among the seals, scientists hope to better understand the energetics of the species and how they structure their ecological community through predation. Using uncrewed systems, under NOAA Fisheries permits, is less invasive and safer for both the seals and the scientists. 

Uncrewed aerial vehicles can also be a safer way to gather data from remote islands where marine mammal surveys from crewed flights can be difficult or dangerous due to low cloud cover. The technology makes it possible to obtain high-quality data without disturbing whales.  

“Optics” is the large-scale collection, storage, and processing of images. These images are essential to, and have been integrated with, several other data sources. These sources include validating satellite data, identifying acoustic targets, and interpreting and validating environmental DNA targets. This technology is helping us to advance data collection using uncrewed systems. 

Optics increasingly serve as the primary data source for many existing NOAA surveys, including fishery-independent surveys and electronic monitoring. This technology can also help establish data sources for undersampled or data-poor regions. 

Optics can:

• Allow for the collection of data in previously inaccessible areas and times
• Augment existing ship- and aircraft-based surveys
• Reduce survey days and hands-on processing time
• Assist with ecosystem monitoring and help validate satellite data

Optics uses tools such as advanced underwater cameras and lasers to generate video and images that scientists use to better understand biodiversity and track the behavior of species. 

Sound is the primary way many marine animals communicate and sense information. Acoustic monitoring uses sound to detect and characterize the physical and biological features of ocean areas. This technology allows us to gather information on fish populations for fisheries management and detect protected species like turtles and whales during surveys. 

Acoustic sensing can provide us with enhanced scientific data on:

• Marine life, such as fish and whales
• The make-up of marine ecosystems
• The effects of human-caused sound (e.g., boats and sonar) on protected species and their ecosystems

There are two ways that we use sound to collect data: “active acoustics” and “passive acoustic monitoring.”  

Active acoustics uses echosounders to emit sound waves into the ocean. Based on the echoes that bounce back, we can deduce what kinds of organisms are in the water. NOAA collects active acoustic data from an increasing number of crewed and uncrewed platforms, such as:

• Fisheries survey vessels
• Autonomous surface and underwater vehicles
• Moorings
• Landers 

This data is used to classify the echoes at the taxa or species level, map their distributions, and estimate abundances.

Unlike active acoustics, passive acoustic monitoring does not send sound out into the environment. Instead, it records naturally occurring underwater sounds. Data from passive acoustic monitoring can either be:

• Archival (a recorder is deployed at sea and then recovered in order to access data) or
• Real time (data is transmitted via cable or satellite as it is collected). 

Our scientists then analyze these recordings and identify the sounds produced by protected marine mammal species, fishes, or humans. This helps us to better understand marine soundscapes. 

Analyzing data from both of these important methods helps us assess species distribution, behavior, and density, which contributes to stock and ecosystem assessments.

For example, scientists at our Northwest Fisheries Science Center attach echosounders to the bottom of Pacific hake trawl ships to estimate the current and future abundance of hake. The assessments provide advice to fishery managers on future harvests. Scientists also recently collaborated with a robotics group to use an echosounder combined with a solar-powered Wave Glider to survey fish populations.

“Remote sensing” refers to the science of deriving information about the earth’s land and oceans from images acquired at a distance, such as satellite imaging and aerial photography. Scientists and resource managers at NOAA Fisheries use remotely sensed data to:

• Determine the distribution and abundance of species living in habitats that are difficult to access
• Monitor coral reef ecosystems for coral bleaching events and other potential disturbances
• Derive sea surface temperature, which can help us detect marine heat waves
• Forecast harmful algal blooms

NOAA Fisheries is also developing an operational system for detecting whales from satellite imagery, called Geospatial Artificial Intelligence for Animals. This collaborative effort is being led by scientists from our Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, and Alaska Regional Office in partnership with organizations like the Naval Research Laboratory, the British Antarctic Survey.

As marine organisms swim through the ocean, they leave behind biological traces in the form of skin cells, fish scales, and fecal matter. We collect a sample of marine or fresh water with these biological traces. Our scientists can extract and analyze the biological molecules that an organism left behind, such as DNA, RNA, proteins, or metabolites. This is known as environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis, and can tell us which organisms were present in a given area. 

Our scientists can also extract genetic material from a tissue sample obtained directly from an organism. This allows us to perform a more detailed genetic analysis that gives us insight into the dynamics of the organism’s population, known as population genomics.

Regardless of whether the genetic material was obtained directly from the organism or its environment, the analysis of its biological molecules is called ‘Omics. ‘Omics uses a suite of cutting-edge technologies to identify organisms, understand their behavior, and predict shifts in their population structure. This allows NOAA Fisheries to obtain critical data in more efficient and inexpensive ways. 

For example, we can determine the presence of marine organisms, such as hake, in a particular region, just by obtaining and analyzing a water sample. This has the potential to help fill data gaps that are essential to assessing fisheries, ecosystems, and protected species. Ultimately, ‘Omics and eDNA could be used to characterize essential fish habitat and provide abundance estimates for stock assessments.