Rutgers Glider

On October 28, 2003, a single Slocum Coastal Electric Glider built by Webb Research Corporation was deployed at the LEO-15 site in Tuckerton, New Jersey. (LEO-15 is Long-term Ecosystem Observatory in 15 meters of water.) The glider was tasked with a single mission: to fly 120 km offshore to the continental shelf break, surfacing periodically to transmit hydrographic (salinity and temperature) data back to mission control at the Rutgers University Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS). Successful completion of the mission and recovery of the glider more than two weeks later signaled the dawn of the age of autonomous underwater vehicles as long-term, real-time operational oceanographic tools.

Since that first deployment in 2003, IMCS Coastal Ocean Observation Lab (COOL) scientists have launched a single glider each month to patrol the New Jersey Shelf Observing Systems “Endurance Line.” The flight path extends from about 5 km offshore to the continental shelf break 120 km away. Mission durations range from two to four weeks, depending on the instrument package, and provide data for the COOL group’s effort to build a historical database on the physics and biology of the New Jersey Shelf.

From 2003 through 2007, for the Endurance Line and other projects, the Rutgers group made 124 glider deployments for a total of 985 calendar days in the water. These gliders traveled more than 36,000 kilometers, recording data from nearly 280,000 casts. In addition to the standard temperature and salinity sensors, the vehicles carry instruments to measure the absorption and scattering of light in the water column. All the glider deployments, including those further afield in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, are flown from the mission control center at IMCS.

The COOL group is currently focusing on the development and deployment of a fleet of gliders to continuously patrol the coastal oceans. To do this, they are applying some of the same “smart” technologies that NASA uses in deploying earth-orbiting satellite constellations. This technology allows the gliders to adjust their current courses based on previously collected physical and optical data. When realized, this program will allow for 24-hour-a-day data collection without constant supervision by a human scientist. The end result will be a glider fleet able to detect and track oceanic features (i.e., upwelling events, red-tides, and coastal eddies) from formation to dissipation. Resulting data will improve current understanding of the dynamical nature of coastal ecosystems and provide earlier detection of oceanic features that develop offshore and are advected into coastal waters.