Abstract— Autonomous underwater vehicles, and in particular
autonomous underwater gliders, represent a rapidly maturing
technology with a large cost-saving potential over current ocean
sampling technologies for sustained (month at a time) real-time
measurements.
In this paper we give an overview of the main building
blocks of an underwater glider system for propulsion, control,
communication and sensing. A typical glider operation, consisting of deployment, planning, monitoring and recovery will be
described using the 2003 AOSN-II field experiment in Monterey
Bay, California.
We briefly describe recent developments at NRC-IOT, in
particular the development of a laboratory-scale glider for
dynamics and control research and the concept of a regional
ocean observation system using underwater gliders.