The autonomous underwater glider "Spray"

Sherman, Jeffrey T.; Davis, Russ E.; Owens, W. Brechner; Valdes, James R.

doi:10.1109/48.972076

Cited by 704 publications

(312 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The first measurements of energy flux were made from autonomous gliders 42 were computed from travel time using nearby moored in-situ temperature measurements, and have an overall uncertainty of 4 m 33 .…”

Section: Glider Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The formation and fate of internal waves in the South China Sea

Alford

Peacock

MacKinnon

et al. 2015

Nature

541

329

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Internal gravity waves, the subsurface analogue of the familiar surface gravity waves that break on beaches, are ubiquitous in the ocean. Because of their strong Internal gravity waves are propagating disturbances of the ocean's density stratification. Their physics resembles that of surface gravity waves but with buoyancy rather than gravity providing their restoring force -making them much larger (10's to 100's of meters instead of 1 to 10 meters) and slower (hours instead of seconds). Generated primarily by tidal flow past seafloor topography and winds blowing on the sea surface, and typically having multi-kilometer-scale horizontal wavelengths, their estimated 1 TW of deep-sea dissipation is understood to play a crucial role in the ocean's global redistribution of heat and momentum 12 . A major challenge is to improve understanding of internal wave generation, propagation, steepening and dissipation, so that the role of internal waves can be more accurately incorporated in climate models.The internal waves that originate from the Luzon Strait on the eastern margin of the South China Sea (SCS) are the largest documented in the global oceans ( Figure 1).As the waves propagate west from the Luzon Strait they steepen dramatically ( Figure 1a), producing distinctive solitary wave fronts evident in sun glint and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from satellites ( Figure 1b). When they shoal onto the continental slope to the west, the downward displacement of the ocean's layers associated with these solitary waves can exceed 250 m in 5 minutes 8 . On such a scale, these waves pose hazards for underwater navigation and offshore drilling 4 , and supply nutrients from the deep ocean that nourish coral reefs 1 and pilot whale populations that forage in their wakes 13 .Over the past decade a number of field studies have been conducted in the region; this work has been comprehensively reviewed 10,11 . All of these studies, however, focused on the propagation of the internal waves across the SCS and their interactions with the continental shelf of China. Until the present study there had been no substantial in situ data gathered at the generation site of the Luzon Strait, in large part because of the extremely challenging operating conditions. A consequence has been persistent 5 confusion regarding the nature of the generation mechanism 11 ; an underlying cause being the sensitivity of the models employed to the system parameters, such as the chosen transect for a two-dimensional model, the linear internal wave speed or the assumed location of the waves' origin within the Luzon Strait. Furthermore, the lack of in situ data from the Luzon Strait has meant an inability to test numerical predictions of energy budgets 9 and no knowledge of the impact of the Kuroshio on the emergence of internal solitary waves 11 .The goal of IWISE is to obtain the first comprehensive in situ data set from the Luzon Strait, which in combination with high-resolution three-dimensional numerical modeling supports a cradle-to-grave picture ...

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Section: Glider Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The formation and fate of internal waves in the South China Sea

Alford

Peacock

MacKinnon

et al. 2015

Nature

541

329

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“…This resulting glider, known as 'Spray'' [10] were electric-powered vehicle optimized for use in the deep ocean where a long duration is paramount.…”

Section: Underwater Glidersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Underwater Gliders: A Review

Javaid

Ovinis

Nagarajan

et al. 2014

MATEC Web of Conferences

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Abstract. Underwater gliders are a type of underwater vehicle that transverse the oceans by shifting its buoyancy, during which its wings develop a component of the downward motion in the horizontal plane, thus producing a forward force. They are primarily used in oceanography sensing and data collection and play an important role in ocean research and development. Although there have been considerable developments in these gliders since the development of the first glider concept in 1989, to date, no review of these gliders have been done. This paper reviews existing underwater gliders, with emphasis on their respective working principles, range and payload capacity. All information on gliders available in the public domain or published in literature from the year 2000-2013 was reviewed. The majority of these gliders have an operational depth of 1000 m and a payload of less than 25 kg. The exception is a blend-body shape glider, which has a payload of approximately 800 kg and an operational depth around about 300 m. However, the commercialization of these gliders has been limited with only three know examples that have been successfully commercialized.

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“…Propelled AUVs such as the Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) [9], the Odyssey [10] and the REMUS [11] were designed to provide maneuverability and speed. Buoyancy-driven autonomous underwater gliders, including the Slocum [12], Spray [13] and Seaglider [14], were designed to provide endurance [15,16]. ABE was used to map the sea bottom and to search out and study deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites and volcanoes [17,18,19,20].…”

Section: Background and Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperative Vehicle Environmental Monitoring

Leonard

2016

Springer Handbook of Ocean Engineering

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Over the last decade, methodologies for automated cooperative control of robotic vehicles have been designed, deployed and proven to provide efficient, reliable, and sustained monitoring of the uncertain and inhospitable ocean environment. Unprecedented data sets have been collected from deployments of cooperative vehicles in the field, and both real-time and post-deployment analyses have led to new understanding of the environment. This first decade of success in cooperative vehicle environmental monitoring sets the stage for new opportunities and future gain, especially as the development of cooperative control methodologies can continue to leverage ongoing technological and scientific advances in underwater communication and sensing, energy and computational efficiency, vehicle size, speed, maneuverability and cost, and ocean modeling and prediction.Indeed, the demonstrated potential of cooperative vehicle control has led to increased demand for fleets of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for use in measuring ocean physics, biology, chemistry and geology to improve understanding of natural dynamics and human-influenced changes in the marine environment. Further, methodologies for cooperative control of robotic vehicles in the ocean are readily adaptable to applications on land, in the air and in space; likewise, there is much to be learned from developments in these other domains. The recent explosion in research on networks and complex systems, including investigation of mechanisms that explain a "collective intelligence" exhibited by animal aggregations on the move, are also being leveraged to advance design of cooperative vehicle dynamics.For environmental monitoring to be successful, physical, chemical, and biological variables must be measured across a range of spatial and temporal scales; in the ocean the monitoring strategy must also contend with a harsh, three-dimensional physical space that is highly uncertain and dynamic. Small spatial and temporal scales associated with the measured variables typically make a stationary sensor array impractical because a very large number of sensors would be needed to get sufficient resolution in space and/or time. An array of mobile sensors, however, may be very well suited to such a challenge since mobility can be exploited to dynamically distribute fewer sensors according to the spatial and temporal scales.The underlying principle of cooperative control of vehicles for environmental monitoring leverages mobility of sensors and uses an interacting dynamic among the individual sensors to yield a collective behavior that performs better than the sum of the parts. If the vehicles can communicate their state or measure the relative state of others in the team, then they can cooperate and the cooperative vehicle dynamics can provide coordinated motion of the team as a whole. The resulting vehicle network functions as a dynamically reconfigurable sensor array with a capability for high performance in environmental monitoring not available at the level of individual...

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The autonomous underwater glider "Spray"

Cited by 704 publications

References 7 publications

The formation and fate of internal waves in the South China Sea

The formation and fate of internal waves in the South China Sea

Underwater Gliders: A Review

Cooperative Vehicle Environmental Monitoring

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