glider technology

- Gliders (Silently) Making O&G Ops Cheaper, More Efficient Marine Technology, Mar 2015 #22
At Ocean Business 2015, DOF Subsea will launch its Skandi Explorer service to the European Market. Previously used in academic studies, this technology is new to the oil and gas market.

The recent and sudden contraction of the Offshore Oil and Gas market has compelled operators to cut costs, while maintaining the high safety standard required in the industry. During these events in the past the Oil and Gas industry has innovated, implementing high-tech autonomous technology to deliver safer and more cost effective solutions. We believe that a new wave of technology can once again provide considerable cost and technological benefit to our industry.
In mid-2014 we launched the Skandi Explorer program in our North America region to further our use of Subsea Autonomy in the Oil and Gas industry and provide a brand new type of autonomous service to Oil and Gas companies. The Skandi Explorer program was built around the Teledyne Slocum Glider vehicle, leveraging this unique autonomous robot’s ability to stay at sea for extended durations while being remotely managed by technicians onshore. Unlike the survey class HUGIN AUVs that DOF Subsea operates, the gliders seek to quantify properties of the water column, not the seabed. Additionally, the gliders move through the water column in a vertical seesaw pattern (called a ‘yo’) due to the fact that the primary propulsion is buoyancy-change driven. Gliders only move propulsion motors at the top and bottom of a yo. These motors are internal to the vehicle and are not connected to propellers. After moving the motors required to change the vehicle pitch and buoyancy, the system takes advantage of free energy motion all the way to the bottom (or top) of the yo. This propulsion type dramatically reduces the energy consumption of the vehicle, allowing it to stay offshore for extended durations. The buoyancy engine of a glider provides an ultra-efficient, acoustically quiet way to navigate the water column.
At the ocean surface, the vehicles call in to servers onshore via an iridium modem. During this time the gliders interact with human operators, transmit data, and receive new instructions. This operational control of the vehicles can be performed from anywhere on the globe with a secure, stable internet connection.
There have been hundreds of these vehicles built previously, yet these systems don’t come out of the box ready to work in the Oil and Gas industry. A considerable effort was made to commercialize the technology. This started with the development of an integrated, web-enabled GIS piloting system which pulls in public domain and proprietary piloting data from the internet and local sources. Piloting gliders from thousands of miles away can be a challenging task. The software we built, named GPI, reduces operational risk by providing near real-time data to pilots about the environment, ships in the vicinity, and the location of any surface or subsea infrastructure.
Many improvements were also made to the launch and recovery methods for the systems, ensuring the vehicles’ field operations comply with Oil and Gas Operator regulations.
Traditional surface vessels are expensive, but are often tasked with measuring properties of seawater or monitoring environmental conditions. These are functions for which gliders were originally designed and which they can accomplish at a fraction of the cost.
Recently in the Gulf of Mexico, we deployed three of the glider systems into a loop current eddy to prove that the vehicles were capable of simultaneously navigating and collecting useful data in challenging environmental conditions. The vehicles experienced surface currents in excess of 3.5 knots but were able to effectively navigate once below the effect of the eddy. Every 4 hours the vehicles would call back to the Houston-based flight control center. The gliders provided data about the eddy water mass and, more importantly to the operation, actionable information about the speed and direction of the current.   In the past vessels have been used to monitor the current in challenging areas. By using glider vehicles clients may save tens of thousands of dollars per day or enable water current observations that were previously outside of the budget.
During the three week test, the vehicles were also collecting fluorometric data including backscatter and Colored Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM).   These data may be used as a marker for the presence of hydrocarbons in the water column, allowing gliders to remotely monitor drilling operations or pipelines for spill event markers. Indeed this method of observation has already been used by government researchers during the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo oil spill incident.
Overall, gliders are another good example of how autonomous technology can provide enormous commercial, operational, and environmental benefits to an industry which has extremely high safety requirements and shrinking budgets. Gliders can not only collect environmental data, but can provide the operational support that surface vessels provide now, all at a fraction of the cost.
Market forces and technological advancements are converging to where glider technology may soon become a mainstay of the Offshore Industry for data-aided operational decisions and environmental incident response.

(As published in the March 2015 edition of Marine Technology Reporter - http://www.marinetechnologynews.com/Magazine)
- Delving Deeper with AUVs Marine Technology, Oct 2016 #18
of gliders are capable of exploring water depths of 1,000m, travelling at approximately 1-2 nautical miles per hour. Future developments in glider technology could see them operate with long endurance, extreme depth, or rapid response capabilities, while development of new sensors will further expand
- Measuring the Hostile Ocean Beneath Hurricanes Marine Technology, Jan 2020 #40
different phases of a storm gives greater insight into the dynamics of air/sea interactions.Teledyne Webb Research were pioneers of unmanned undersea glider technology. Slocum gliders advanced rapidly from experimental prototypes to reliable mobile platforms that have operated worldwide in diverse upper-ocean

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March 2024 - Marine Technology Reporter page: 48
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ronments. The new agreement will address speci? c techni- cal gaps in the UUV defense and offshore energy markets especially for long duration, multi-payload mission opera- tions where communications are often denied or restricted. As part of the new alliance, Metron’s Resilient Mission Autonomy portfolio
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March 2024 - Marine Technology Reporter page: 43
Image courtesy Kongsberg Discovery Image courtesy Teledyne Marine New Products Teledyne Marine had its traditional mega-booth at Oi, busy start to ? nish. Image courtesy Greg Trauthwein offers quality sub-bottom pro? ling capability without the need tion of offshore windfarms. GeoPulse 2 introduces new
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March 2024 - Marine Technology Reporter page: 41
Image courtesy Outland Technology Image courtesy Exail Image courtesy Submaris and EvoLogics Vehicles The ROV-1500 from Outland Technology represents a leap forward in underwater robotics, a compact remotely operated vehicle (ROV) weighing in at less than 40 lbs (19kg) the ROV- 1500 is easy to transport
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March 2024 - Marine Technology Reporter page: 40
NEW TECH OCEANOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 2024 All photos courtesy MTR unless otherwise noted NEW TECH, PARTNERSHIPS LAUNCH IN LONDON With Oceanology International now one month in the rear-view mirror, MTR takes a look at some of the interesting technologies launched before, during and after the London event.
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regulated industry in the world.” How- ever, commercial success depends on many factors, not least a predictable OPEX. Over the past four years, SMD has worked with Oil States Industries to calculate cost per tonne ? gures for prospective customers. Patania II uses jet water pumps to Oil States’
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FEATURE SEABED MINING by a sea? oor plume from its pilot collection system test. pact, nodule collection system that utilizes mechanical and The Metals Company recently signed a binding MoU with hydraulic technology. Paci? c Metals Corporation of Japan for a feasibility study on The company’s SMD
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FEATURE SEABED MINING bilical. It has passive heave compensation which nulli? es the necott. “The focus since then has been on scaling while en- wave, current and vessel motions that in? uence loads in the suring the lightest environmental impact,” says The Metals power umbilical. The LARS can
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n January, Norway said “yes” to sea- bed mining, adding its weight to the momentum that is likely to override the calls for a moratorium by over 20 countries and companies such as I Google, BMW, Volvo and Samsung. Those against mining aim to protect the unique and largely unknown ecology of the sea?
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SEA-KIT USV Maxlimer returning from HT-HH caldera in Tonga. © SEA-KIT International data and further assess ecosystem recov- ery. What is known, noted Caplan-Auer- bach, is that the impact of submarine vol- canoes on humans is rare. “The HT-HH eruption was a tragedy, but it was very unusual. It let us
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from SEA-KIT International. Jasmin McInerney, Ocean Instrument Engineer, Employment of technology during talking to crew in the workboat deploying the glider. Phase One of TESMaP. RV Tangaroa ? anked by the islands of HTHH. Left - Hunga Ha’apai, right - Hunga Tonga. MTR #3 (18-33).indd 26 4/4/2024 11:23:26
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of landslides in acoustic data recorded (conductivity, temperature, depth), and off Kilauea and West Mata. Before that Known Unknowns autonomous ocean glider. Mackay’s fa- discovery, we had no idea how to tell if Much remains unknown about subma- vorite was the multibeam echo sounder, an undersea landslide
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elatively inactive since 2014, the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai (HT-HH) submarine volcano began erupting on December 20, 2021, reaching peak intensity on January 15, 2022. This triggered tsunamis throughout the Pa- R ci? c, destroyed lives and infrastructure, and generated the largest explosion recorded
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March 2024 - Marine Technology Reporter page: 20
2024 November/December 2024 December 2024 Ad close Dec. 4 Ad close Sept. 21 Ad close Nov. 21 Ocean Observation: Gliders, Buoys Digital Edition & Sub-Surface Networks MTR100 ??QVWUXPHQWDWLRQ3UR?OHUV6DPSOHUV 6HGLPHQW&RUHU Focus on 100 Leading Companies, ?$'&3V '9/V People
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About the Author vey with the pipe tracker is not required, resulting in signi? - Svenn Magen Wigen is a Cathodic Protection and corrosion control cant cost savings, mainly related to vessel charter. expert having worked across The major advantage of using FiGS on any type of subsea engineering, design
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TECH FEATURE IMR There are also weaknesses in terms of accuracy because of FiGS Operations and Bene? ts signal noise and the ability to detect small ? eld gradients. In Conventional approaches to evaluating cathodic protection this process there is a risk that possible issues like coating (CP)
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• Integrity assessment, and otherwise covered, e.g., by rock dump. As for depletion of • Mitigation, intervention and repair. sacri? cial anodes, this can be dif? cult or even impossible to Selecting the best method for collecting the data these work- estimate due to poor visibility, the presence of
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TECH FEATURE IMR Image courtesy FORCE Technology OPTIMIZING CATHODIC PROTECTION SURVEY USING NON-CONTACT SENSORS By Svenn Magen Wigen, FORCE Technology he principle behind sacri? cial anodes, which are water structures, reducing the need for frequent repairs and used to safeguard underwater pipelines
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sensor options for longer mission periods. About the Author For glider users working in ? sheries and conservation, Shea Quinn is the Product Line Manager the Sentinel can run several high-energy passive and active of the Slocum Glider at Teledyne Webb acoustic sensors, on-board processing, and imaging
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TECH FEATURE TELEDYNE SLOCUM GLIDERS to hold over 3.5 times as many lithium primary batteries as the the water column and its thrusters give it the ability to stay standard Slocum Glider, and to physically accommodate up to on track in strong currents or other dif? cult ocean condi- 8 different sensor
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assessments, mammal monitoring, ? sheries, physical oceanography, defense, or dozens of other missions – has driven advance- ments in glider technology to meet the modern demand for long-term data gathering of all kinds. In response, Teledyne Webb Research has announced the launch of their
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TECH FEATURE TELEDYNE SLOCUM GLIDERS Teledyne Webb Research Engineers deploy the Slocum Sentinel Glider in Cape Cod Bay for testing. Teledyne Webb Research AS THE GLIDER COMMUNITY GROWS, SO DO GLIDERS By Shea Quinn, Slocum Glider Product Line Manager, Teledyne Marine 12 March/April 2024 MTR #3 (1-17).
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assist in identifying mines and act as a neutralization device. About the Author Bottom mines pose even greater chal- David R. Strachan is a defense analyst and founder of lenges. Unlike contact mines, bottom Strikepod Systems, a research and strategic advisory mines utilize a range of sensors to