About Underwater Gliders

An underwater glider is a buoyant Automonous Underwater Vehicle that collects oceanographic information at varying depths over time by traveling along a pre-planned trajectory as they rise and float, relaying data to sites on the surface at regular intervals. The low power consumption of the vehicles allows them to remain in the field for much longer than most oceanographic data-collecting AUVs, providing a greater range of data than is typically available from AUVs or ship-board collection.

Spray Underwater Gliders

The Spray underwater glider was first developed by Scripps and Woods Hole scientists with support from ONR for long-range oceanographic missions in 1999. Spray gliders are battery-powered, rudderless vehicles capable of operating up to 1500 m depth. Typical sensors onboard include CTDs, fluorometers, altimeters, optical backscatter sensors, and / or ADCPs.

In typical use, a Spray glider 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 a Spray glider 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 SCCOOS / SIO IDG Spray Program

The SIO IDG group provides Spray Glider data from select missions in the Southern California Bight to SCCOOS for additional analysis purposes and map visualization. Canonical mission data can always be found on the IDG Spray website.

SCCOOS Spray Glider Statistics To-Date