Operational glider monitoring, piloting, and communications

Abstract

The Glider Operations Center (GOC) at the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) is responsible for operating a fleet of autonomous unmanned systems, including ocean gliders, in the collection of physical oceanography data. The data collected include ocean temperature, salinity, and optical properties, which are profiled at depth and used by ocean modelers to forecast future environmental ocean conditions. NAVOCEANO then provides these forecasts in near-real time to support strategic, operational, and tactical Navy fleet requirements and activities. The Glider Monitoring, Piloting, and Communications (GLMPC) interface is a tool used by the GOC for command and control of ocean gliders and other unmanned surface vehicles. Vehicles controlled by GLMPC include the Littoral Battlespace Sensing-Glider (shallow and deep varieties), Kongsberg Seaglider, and Liquid Robotics Wave Glider. GLMPC provides the glider pilot with the ability to change and adjust missions, plan and adjust routes, review vehicle data profiles and statistics, compare dives and profiles of multiple vehicles in one area, and view vehicle diagnostics. Each type of autonomous vehicle is produced by the respective manufacturer with its own user interface, complete with a special set of commands only that type of vehicle can understand. GLMPC provides a pilot the ability to communicate with multiple types of vehicles simultaneously via a graphical user interface (GUI). GLMPC converts the GUI instructions into the specific commands expected by each vehicle type. This significantly reduces the number of commands a pilot is required to manually issue to vehicles and increases the number and types of vehicles that can be effectively operated at once. Future enhancements to GLMPC are planned to include Glider Observation Strategies (GOST) software, developed by the Naval Research Laboratory, which will automate the generation of planned vehicle tracks to be ingested by GLMPC. Other enhancements to GLMPC include the ability to display quality-controlled data and raw data for comparison purposes. Currently only raw data are displayed. Display of real-time weather and/or wind forecast data is also being explored.