ARROW SEA Day 4

“These equations look intimidating…. because they are”. Luckily, Umberto Ciri, Lu Wang, and Atharva Sathe are excellent educators who were able to break down complicated topics like optimizing wind farm wake effects, hydrodynamic wake upwelling, and boundary layer turbulence modeling to make them both understandable and intriguing

We wrapped up Day 4 and the end of ARROW-SEA 2026 with multiple sessions about drone use in offshore wind monitoring. Christopher Niezrecki from University of Massachusetts Lowell walked us through the technology of drone imaging and data analysis with an engaging demonstration showing how regular and IR images can be useful in structural analysis. Christopher Rillahan from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth took participants outside to the pier to demonstrate the use of AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) and Sarah McElman, PhD from Metocean Expert Americas spoke about how industries use these drones to collect metocean data. Greg DeCelles from Ørsted talked more about industry drone use and cod vocalizations while Alessandro Sabato and his team from University of Massachusetts Lowell allowed participants to try out some drone racing to see if they could beat the race time of the drone program. There were more than a few crash landings but we also uncovered some skilled drone operators among our group!

It was an exciting and engaging end to our week together, and we look forward to seeing everyone again next year for SEA 2027 in Baltimore, MD. Thank you again to Massachusetts Clean Energy Center & Maryland Energy Administration for making SEA possible!