The main objective of this Action is the coordination of ongoing research using gliders, and the conception of future research, to operate fleets of autonomous underwater gliders in order to provide cost-effective methods for the discovery and monitoring of the ocean at global, regional and coastal scales with benefit to both basic oceanographic research and operational applications for marine activities.
Underwater gliders are intelligent and affordable platforms useful for long term multi parameter marine observations. They play an important role for present and planned marine observation networks. Deployed in swarms, they provide near real-time high spatial and temporal resolution data that will efficiently fill the gaps left by existing in-situ observation networks based on other marine platforms such as the profilers in the ARGO network. This will be beneficial for both academic oceanographic research and especially operational oceanography systems on which a large number of marine activities now rely. However, the deployment of swarms of gliders requires highly skilled operators and a sophisticated level of cooperation. The objective of the “European Gliding Observatories” Action is to build cooperation at the technological, scientific and organizational levels for a European capacity for sustained observations of the oceans with gliders.
Gliders - Autonomous Underwater Vehicles - Operational oceanography - Marine observations networks - Sensor technology and integration
