NOAA and Oshen robots bring back key wind and pressure data from Hurricane Humberto
A small, wind–powered ocean robot became the first uncrewed surface vehicle to capture and transmit data from inside a Category 5 hurricane on Sunday, September 28, as part of research by NOAA, the United Kingdom-based robotics company, Oshen, and the University of Southern Mississippi.
NOAA has teamed up with Oshen and USM to operate 7 USVs called C-Stars to gather weather data from the surface of the ocean during the 2025 hurricane season.
During Hurricane Humberto, one of the C-Stars became the smallest USV to gather data from the eyewall of the Category 5 hurricane. Two other C-Stars penetrated Hurricane Humberto to gather data while it was a Category 4 storm later on Sunday.
C-stars are four-foot long, wind-propelled boats with solar-powered sensors that transmit real-time data every two minutes on wind speed and direction, sea surface temperature, air temperature, air pressure and relative humidity via satellite for forecasters and scientists. They also take photos during their missions for immediate download, and video for download after the vessels are recovered.
Three C-stars entered Hurricane Humberto in intervals approximately 12 hours apart to collect real-time data to be used by NOAA’s National Hurricane Center and sent to the Global Telecommunications System to inform forecasters.
One C-Star measured a minimum air pressure of 955 millibars and hurricane strength gusts of over 150 miles per hour in Humberto’s eyewall. The low air pressure measurement, together with an increase in sunlight measured by the C-Star, confirmed that the C-Star traveled through the eyewall and into the edge of the eye. NHC referred to the C-Star data on air pressure and wind in an official forecast discussion for Humberto on Sunday afternoon.
“The C-Stars collected valuable data from the strongest part of Hurricane Humberto and successfully transmitted it in near-real-time,” said Greg Foltz, an oceanographer at NOAA”s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab and co-principal investigator for the project. “This opens up the possibility of more routine use of C-Stars for hurricane data collection in the future in support of hurricane research and forecasting.”
On Saturday morning, NOAA, Oshen and the University of Southern Mississippi also rapidly deployed two C-Stars from the coast of North Carolina, with the goal of collecting data in Hurricane Imelda. In less than 48 hours, the team drove the C-Stars from Mississippi to North Carolina and worked with the local company Sea Tow to deploy the uncrewed surface vehicles. While the C-stars will not directly intercept Imelda, these vehicles will continue to track hurricane data in the Atlantic. The success of this rapid deployment demonstrates one of the benefits of these new smaller USVs.
“Although Oshen’s work with NOAA will continue until the end of the hurricane season late in November, this exercise so far has been a tremendous success, with the C Stars successfully providing data in the most powerful category of hurricane. This performance exceeded even our expectations, and validates the concept of deploying multiple, low-cost sensors to provide persistent monitoring over wide areas.” said Anahita Laverack, chief executive officer for Oshen.
Funding for this research was provided by NOAA’s Uncrewed Systems Operations Center. In addition, the research is supported by The University of Southern Mississippi, University of the Virgin Islands, and NOAA’s Ocean Exploration, Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, National Data Buoy Center, Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, Aircraft Operations Center, and National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service for logistical support.
Media contacts:
NOAA: Monica Allen, monica.allen@noaa.gov
Oshen: Anahita Laverack, anahita.laverack@oshensail.com