Gliders will Aid Naval Research.

• Author: Rusling, Matthew

The Navy will acquire underwater gliders to boost its oceanographic research efforts and to help improve the positioning of fleets during naval maneuvers.

The Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command awarded Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc., of Huntsville, Ala., a $6.2 million contract to design by July 2010 a "littoral battlespace sensing-glider," or LBS-G. The contract would be worth up to $52.6 million if the Navy exercises an option to buy up to 150 gliders by 2014.

The system will be based on the Teledyne Webb Research Slocum Glider. Gliders were first conceived by Douglas Webb, the founder of Webb Research and a former researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The Slocum Glider is a torpedo-shaped autonomous underwater winged vehicle that measures 1.5 meters and uses changes in buoyancy along with its wings and tail-fin steering to move through the water, said a Teledyne news release.

The gliders will collect data on water temperature and salinity, and the Navy will use that information to better understand the properties that affect underwater sounds that are picked up by sensors, said Randall Case, assistant program manager for the Navy's littoral battlespace sensing, fusion and integration project. The Navy will operate the vehicles from T-AGS 60 oceanographic survey ships, he said.

The glider will weigh around 118 pounds and measure nearly five feet long. Alkaline and lithium ion batteries will power the vehicles, which will use the Global...