More on Underwater Gliders

ianjk writes "Abcnews.com is reporting on two underwater gliders developed by the University of Washington and Webb Research. Both use very little energy and have quite long ranges (thousands of kilometers). Of course, the US Navy is showing quite an interest in the project." We mentioned these earlier.

Comments

Navy not looking for much...

[ZeLonewolf]

From a technical Navy employee...

You would think that the Navy would be getting all sorts of funding for these types of projects nowadays... but really what's happening is that funding is being diverted to war operations type stuff... so those of us working on new technology for the Navy have gotten huge budget cuts...so don't expect much in the way of cool techie things any time soon.

US Navy drones and DSV's

[Anonymous Coward]

Have been under study for years- the Mk48 Torpedo is basically a wire-guided drone; it reports information back to the mother sub and can be steered using a joystick.

The USN has been looking into extreme-depth tethered drones- really strange things start happening to sonar and weapons performance at extreme depth.

Of course, this will all come in handy if the USN needs to fight the Third Battle Of the North Atlantic, but for littoral (inshore) warfare, the navy might want to start researching some brown-water navy stuff.

Re:US Navy drones and DSV's

[timepilot]

I worked with a group of people at Rutgers University who used Webb gliders and other AUVs. The gliders were used very successfully in a littoral environment, often to provide dense data streams which were in turn used to initialize ocean models.

The models, which were given a very accurate representation of ocean and atmospheric conditions with this data, were used to produce forecasts of ocean conditions which could have been very useful in a littoral warfare environment.

Check out http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/LEO/LEO15.html

This will ease the Greenies pressure on the Navy

[typical geek]

One of the biggest use for these will be as weapons, count on it. And this will get the Greenies off the Navies back (at least until they find some other windmill to tilt at, like deaf whales or something).

There have been a variety of Navy programs that used trained sea mammals to protect Naval bases, for instance the trained dolphins trained to bump into a VC frogman in Kham Rhan bay, but they never told the dolphins that the bumping hat was an activated mine. Boom!, one less flipper, and one less Charlie.

There are also reports of using sea lions, seals other cetaceans to watch for submersibles and boats, and hit them, forcing a detonation. For instance, Day of the Dolphin is a thinly veiled documentary on teh CIA's attempt to train dolphins to blow up Castro's yacht.

So, with these, everyone will win. The Greenies cute little dolphins don't have to kill, and the US Navy can continue to enforce the Pax Americana, and the rest of the world (except for evildoers) can go about their business, criticizing war mongering Americans, yet profiting from the most peaceful age the world has known since the Roman Empire. We business savvy sorts call that a win-win situation.

How Deep?

[Marco_polo]

I wonder how deep these gliders will go? At what depth does the pressure start playing havoc with its sink/swim functions?

I am really curious as to what we could find if we put a bunch of these in the ocean, and just monitored for objects that don't belong..

the sunken city of atlantis? :-) but seriously.. I would love to see what kind of data a long term mapping program would compile..

Re:How Deep?

[jovlinger]

You have a couple of options. First of all, you can recover quite a bit of energy from the work performed by pressure: These devices all have sealed bladders that provide most of the bouyancy on the upslope.

However, when compressed, they will get hot, and this heat can be used to drive a sterling engine against the temperature sink of the ocean. Likewise, on rising, the bladders will cool, allowing you to drive the sterling engine in reverse, with the bladder as the sink and the ocean as a heat source.

To provide the necessary extra bouyancy to go from dive to rise, a chemical could be released into a reservoir of seawater (off hand I can't think of such a chemical: you need something which expands the volume of seawater). However, you could likely carry enough of such a chemical for many dives. To go from rise to sink, you need merely vent the cavern, fill it with sea-water, and start over again.

Starkist "Glider Safe" Tuna

[Anonymous Coward]

So what happens when the navy's underwater-spy-glider-drones are picked up in a fishing net?

Re:Starkist "Glider Safe" Tuna

[ion]

eBay...

Re:Ridiculous

[Gruneun]

This is exactly why water transport is a dead end that has rarely worked in the past.

Most water-based transport has been based on using brute force to displace the water with the object. This, like air to a hot-air balloon, lets the water displace the object. The whole point, had you really read the article, is that the glider is letting the water do all the work.

Re:Ridiculous

[Rupert]

You only need to look at the lockout on the west coast ports to realize how important water transport is.

Or you might want to read the history of the Phoenicians, Polynesians, or even of Christopher Columbus, all of whom apparently had working water transport, despite your claims.

I realize I may have dreadfully misinterpreted your post, but I can't work out what else you may have meant.

thoughts for the future?

[Ashish Kulkarni]

you know, reading articles such as this always leave me with the feeling that we aren't really exploring the use of the seas in future. Almost 70% of the earth is water, but we do not have that much effort or research money in it that we have for space exploration. It's really quite illogical to hope for the stars while ignoring your own backyard. Also considering that pure water is going to be one of the world's biggest problems, we should be paying more attention here.

Re:Ridiculous

[Shadow Wrought]

The energy being used by the glider is harnessed through dropping and rising in relation to the Ocean's surface. It is really not a comparison between Air going gliders and Undersea going gliders, or the effeciencies thereof. It is about utilizing the conditions of the ocean itself as a powersource for a long endurance underwater craft. Its also pretty damn cool!

As for the sea transport bit at the end... While it didn't actually have anything to do with the article, you should probably be aware that most products arrive from overseas on ships- not airplanes. That's why the lockout of the longshoreman on the West Coast last week required Bush II to step in.

Pax Americana*

[Rupert]

*Offer void where prohibited, particularly Cuba. Residents of non-oil-producing countries may experience delays. Not responsible for loss of life or limb in the event that USA fails to support your attempted coup. All oil reserves become the property of Halliburton and Arbusto Inc. Countries in Axis of Evil may be changed without notice, and at the promoters sole discretion. Full rules are kept in a locked closet in the basement of Karl Rove's house and may not be inspected. For a free game piece, send a stamped, addressed envelope to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC. No purchase necessary, although failure to purchase large quantities of US goods will severely impair your chances of winning.

Solar Panels?

[cybercomm]

They said the batteres would be LiIon and that the submersible would be comming to surface to communicate, so why not add a couple of solar panels? Im sure it won't bring up the costs significantly. (Heck NASA probably already has a bulk discount on solar panels :) Does the depth and salinity in water affect solar panels; is that why they are refraining from using them?

Re:Ridiculous - Look at history!!

[mustangdavis]

It is a well documented fact the the countries with a dominant Navy have always been the pwoer house of the world.

There is no way to fly, reload and refuel our (the U.S.) military planes and use them effectively in a war without air craft carriers .... which is why we keep a dominant Navy. They also make it possible to place embargos into effect!

As far as history ... why do you think Great Britian was the power house it was back in the day? G.B. is just a small islnad nation, but yet they were the dominant force on this planet for over a century. Why? Their NAVY!!!

Keep in mind that there is no way for any Asian or European countries to invade the Americas (if they wanted to) without the use of a Navy. A solid Navy is the key to winning ANY war (without using nukes).

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to re-live it!

Wow so fast

[Zakabog]

Charles Eriksen, an oceanography professor and one of the developers of the Seaglider, says that such a propulsion system isn't fast. At best, the glider can make about half a knot -- slightly more than half a mile an hour.

But since it will use only one-half watt of electrical energy to produce that speed, Eriksen says the Seaglider has a range of "thousands of kilometers" and remain in the ocean gather data for much longer.

"We can operate one of these for a year and across whole ocean basins," says Eriksen.

I can picture this thing going for a year...

Some Navy Officer: We've got a special mission for you, we sent out an underwater glider a year ago to collect data on enemy sub movement, we need you to recover the glider.

Navy Seal: Sir yes sir!

*goes into the water, takes 10 steps forward, reaches down, picks up glider*

Navy Seal: Sir I have recovered the glider sir!

Interesting to watch

[Shadow2097]

In the US Air Force and part of the Army, pilots of traditional fighter/bomber aircraft are none too thrilled with the unmanned aerial vehicles. You go from putting it all on the line everytime you strap on the flight suit to sitting in a nice air-conditioned office playing what amounts to a fancy (and amazingly lifelike) video game. There is intense pressure from the pilots to scale this program down immensely.

The Navy however, has no figher pilot equivalent. The billion dollar war platforms that make up the submarine force are already very unglamorous to work in. The price tag of these ships brings in a whole new player to this battle. Congressmen and women LOVE to see high-priced defense contracts being given to shipyards in their districts.

If these mini-subs are truly effective and the demand for hugely expensive nuclear powered subs begins to drop, it will be interesting to see which senators favor the modernization of our military vs. those who want more pork barrel projects pumping fuel into their local economies.

-Shadow

Not what I was expecting

[Black Copter Control]

After reading the article, I was expecting a delta ray type lifting-body. I'm expecting that that would give a much distance/depth efficiency -- and possibly better speed.

I also agree with the earlier poster -- a 1 Knot 'glider' in a 5 knot current sounds only slightly better than a buoy -- but you may be able to use that 1 knot active motion to do things like move cross-current and use different ocean currents to move you around the ocean.

Finally!

[gillbates]

The glider then rises to the surface and transmits its finding back to the lab using the Iridium satellite communications system

So someone finally found a use for the Iridium satellites after all!

Code name

[verloren]

Rumour has it that the shark community will be code-naming these gliders:

"Lunch"

Inventions of Daedalus

[serutan]

Wow! The thermal version described in the article is very similar to the "glidoons" proposed in The Inventions of Daedalus a number of years ago. A glidoon is an inflatable glider containing a substance that is gaseous at sea level and condenses in the cold of high altitude. The craft glides up and down without fuel, driven only by the endlessly reversing buoyancy. Exact same principle, and they really did it!