Navy recovers autonomous underwater glider adrift off Aveiro

On Wednesday morning, the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) informed the Portuguese Navy Hydrographic Institute (IH) that an underwater glider (also known as ocean glider) belonging to that research centre, was malfunctioning and drifting about 60 nautical miles (111 km) west of Aveiro.

This underwater glider was committed to the iFado European project and would then reap observations between Aveiro and Sines under another European project - Euromarine Robots - in a partnership between PLOCAN and the IH.

It was promptly engaged by the Portuguese Navy, the NRP Setúbal with a technical IH team on board, to conduct the detection and recovery of the glider. This urgency was motivated not only by the high cost of this equipment, but also by the high contribution that this system has made to the observation of our sea.

Early on September 10, the ship detected and successfully recovered the glider. This system will then be delivered to the IH Oceanographic Instrumentation Center, where together with a PLOCAN team will attempt to repair it so that it can proceed with the initially planned mission.

The path and oceanographic measurements performed by this underwater glider may be accompanied by:

http://obsplatforms.plocan. I/vehicle/mission/100/