Spray

The Underwater Glider Spray

Underwater gliders are autonomous vehicles that profile vertically by controlling buoyancy and move horizontally on wings. The Instrument Development Group at Scripps Institution of Oceanography has developed the underwater glider Spray.
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Spray Operations

In typical use, Spray cycles from the surface to 1000 m, traveling 6 km in the horizontal in 6 hours. Spray’s horizontal velocity is thus about 0.25 m/s, and its vertical velocity is roughly 0.1 m/s. GPS and Iridium antennas are in Spray’s wings, so when Spray is on the surface it rolls 90° to navigate and communicate. During communication, Spray sends data to shore, and shore-based pilots can change mission parameters such as waypoints and dive depth. Typical deployment duration is 3-5 months, depending on sensor suite, stratification, dive depth, and profiling speed. The data can be found at spraydata.ucsd.edu
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