Page 49 - UD Research Magazine Vol5-No1

Slocum Gliders
The Teledyne Webb Research Slocum Gliders are AUVs used for long-term deployments. The gliders can measure water quality parameters over great distances where other AUVs are limited by battery-powered propellers. The vehicle periodically surfaces and uses its iridium satellite communications to report its position and status, providing the research team an opportunity to change its mission. Gliders are typically used for environmental monitoring, habitat extent monitoring and large area oceanographic studies.
DIMENSIONS: Length: 1.5 m; Diameter: 22 cm MISSION DURATION: 1–90 days
TRAVEL DISTANCE: 100’s of km MAXIMUM DEPTH: 200 m(1 km) RECENT MISSION: Tracking and studying penguins in Antarctica.
Teledyne Gavia
The Teledyne Gavia is a modular AUV used for research. The vehicle has surveyed more than 3,500 kilometers (over 2,175 miles) in over 180 missions, including surveying scallops to track how dredging affects their populations, coral reef studies and seafloor mapping.
Phase-measuring Bathy sonar technology enables the Gavia
to create 3-D sonar plots, while optical cameras capture video and images. An acoustic modem, not too dissimilar from a Wi-Fi modem, provides researchers status updates of the Gavia’s progress and helps them find the vehicle if it gets lost. Text messages via satellite commu- nications when the vehicle surfaces inform scientists about the AUV’s position and mission status.
DIMENSIONS: Length: 1.8 m; Diameter: 20 cm MISSION DURATION: 3–4 hours
TRAVEL DISTANCE: 15–20 km
MAXIMUM DEPTH: 500 m
RECENT MISSION: Used to map an 1889 shipwreck off the coast of Cape Henlopen.
UD's Mark Moline (pictured second from the left) participates in a flag ceremony over the site of a U.S. Navy MIA airman and his Hellcat fighter aircraft discovered in Palau in March 2014 by BentProp and researchers from the University of
Delaware and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
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