The Seaglider is a deep-diving

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot that travels underwater without requiring input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includes ...

(AUV) designed for missions lasting many months and covering thousands of miles. In military applications the Seaglider is more commonly referred to as an

Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), sometimes known as underwater drones, are submersible vehicles that can operate underwater without a human occupant. These vehicles may be divided into two categories: remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROU ...

(UUV). Seaglider was initially developed by the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

iRobot iRobot Corporation is an American technology company that designs and builds consumer robots. It was founded in 1990 by three members of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, who designed robots for space exploration and military defense. The com ...

received an exclusive five-year license to produce the Seaglider for customers outside the University of Washington in June 2008. May 2013 Kongsberg Underwater Technology, Inc. (part of

Kongsberg Maritime Kongsberg Maritime (KM) is a Norwegian technology enterprise within the Kongsberg Gruppen (KOG). Kongsberg Maritime deliver systems for positioning, surveying, navigation, and automation to merchant vessels and offshore installations. Their most ...

) announced that they have completed negotiations with the University of Washington's Center for Commercialization to obtain the sole rights to produce, market and continue the development of Seaglider ™ technology.

Systems

Seaglider measures temperature, salinity and other quantities in the ocean, sending back data using global satellite telemetry. Seaglider UUVs are in use worldwide, collecting oceanic physical properties and performing various other missions for oceanographers, including the U.S. Navy, government agencies and research organizations. Seaglider "flies" through the water with extremely modest energy requirements using changes in

buoyancy Buoyancy (), or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus the p ...

for thrust coupled with a stable low-drag hydrodynamic shape. Designed to operate at depths up to 1,000 meters the hull compresses as it sinks to match the pressure from the seawater.

Missions

In May 2010 Seaglider was deployed in the Gulf of Mexico to help monitor and gather data during the

Deepwater Horizon oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered ...

incident. In 2013 the US Navy tested Seaglider for use in the

Littoral combat ship The littoral combat ship (LCS) is either of two classes of relatively small surface vessels designed for operations near shore by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeat ...

. As of 2016, the US Navy was deploying LBS-Glider from T-AGS and was preparing to deploy from DDGs.

References

External links

Seaglider Spec sheet

Seaglider website
Autonomous underwater vehicles IRobot 2000s robots {{Robotics-stub

Systems

Missions

See also

References

External links