'Green' Energy Powers Undersea Glider

From Oceanus:

Thermal glider uses heat from the ocean to fly through the deep blue. Researchers have successfully flown the first thermal glider through the ocean—a robotic vehicle that can propel itself for several months across thousands of miles, using only heat energy from the ocean. In April 2008, a research team led by Dave Fratantoni of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Roy Watlington of the University of the Virgin Islands retrieved a prototype thermal glider that they had launched in December 2007 off the coast of St. Thomas in the Caribbean Sea. The vehicle crisscrossed a deep ocean basin between St. Thomas and St Croix more than 75 times, traveling uninterruptedly for more than 1,600 nautical miles (3,000 kilometers). "We now believe the technology is stable enough to be used for science. It is no longer just an engineering prototype," Fratantoni said. The thermal glider fulfills a major step toward a long-held dream of oceanographers: launching an armada self-propelled, long-lasting, relatively inexpensive robots to roam throughout the oceans. The vehicles could measure ocean conditions over timepsans and territory impossible to attain and afford using ships, and they would report regularly via satellite to scientists back on shore. The idea was conceived in the 1980s by Doug Webb, a former WHOI research specialist who founded the Webb Research Corporation, which built the thermal glider. Webb collaborated extensively with renowned WHOI physical oceanographer Henry Stommel, who in 1989 penned an article in the journal Oceanography about a fleet of Webb's gliding sentinels bobbing through the ocean. Webb and Stommel named the vehicles "Slocum" gliders for Joshua Slocum, the first man to single-handedly sail around the world.

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