Real-time modeling of ocean currents for navigating underwater glider sensing networks

Abstract

Ocean models that are able to provide accurate and real-time prediction of ocean currents will improve the performance of glider navigation. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to compute a model for ocean currents at higher resolution than existing approaches. By focusing on a small area and incorporating measurements from multiple gliders, we are able to perform real-time computation of the model, which can be used to improve performance of underwater glider navigation in the ocean. Our model uses a lower resolution, larger scale dataset generated from existing models to initialize the computation. We have also demonstrated incorporating data streams from high frequency (HF) radar measurements of surface currents. Glider navigation performance using the proposed ocean currents model is demonstrated in a simulated flow field based on data collected off the coast of Georgia, USA. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.