The drone they are talking about here is the underwater version, otherwise known as a glider. Gliders are vehicles that carry a suite of oceanographic sensors that measure ocean properties. This could include a CTD to estimate physical properties such as temperature, salinity, depth and sound speed or oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence and backscatter sensors to measure biological properties. Oceanographers love these things because they are autonomous, meaning they can drive themselves with only a little help from humans on shore (although they sometimes do need to wake up at ungodly hours to help redirect them). Plus, they are much cheaper than using a ship.

From the vague and conflicting description on news reports, I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what kind of “ocean glider” was seized by the Chinese. It is either this Seaglider

or this Slocum Glider:

Operationally, both of these gliders work pretty much the same. They are buoyancy-driven, which means they have a bladder that fills up with either oil or seawater allowing it to sink or float. The wings force the glider forward as it is diving and dive pitch and speed is adjusted by internally shifiting weight inside the body (usually the heavy battery pack). The Seaglider also uses changes in the location of the battery pack to roll itself and steer, while the Slocum Glider steers with an adorable little rudder. What differs is the range and the scientific payloads these gliders can carry. Generally Seagliders go deeper but carry less stuff, while Slocum’s cruise the shallow seas and can be more heavily loaded.

It’s pretty well known that the US has economic and security interests in the region around the South China Sea where the drone was seized. These ocean gliders have been used here before, the Office of Naval Research regularly supports oceanographic research in the region. The question to ask is not why the glider was taken, as it was unclassified and a small asset, rather why was it taken now? As of the writing of this article, the answer to this question is still unclear. However, the US and China have struck a deal and apparently the US is getting its glider back unharmed, which is good news for once ocean robot who took an unexpected detour.

The post Ocean robot seized, causes international incident first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Seagliders spend their time flying up and down between the sea surface and the deep ocean again and again and again, all the while measuring the vital signs of the ocean (temperature, salinity and pressure). I imagine this is a lonely existence. Only when it comes to the surface does it briefly communicate with the outside world, sending out a strip of encoded data while receiving navigational instructions from pilots on land. The rest of the time they prowl the oceans, gathering data.

But I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say…YOU LIED TO US GLIDER! And those marks on your dirty, dirty hull tells us the truth, you had a clandestine encounter with a cephalopod!

You’ve been busted glider. Those sucker marks…probably the work of a squid. Gliders spend most of their time in the realm of these cephalopods, in the deep ocean beneath the photic zone. This particular encounter occurred in the Atlantic Ocean. There are multiple sets of sucker marks, and the ones in the back look like the squid attempted the full embrace maneuver, wrapping its arms completely around the glider (which is the standard way that squids investigate items of interest).

But what sort of embrace was it? Was it an epic wrestling match between squid and machine? Did the squid try to drag the glider down to the murky depths? Did they fight until the squid was tired to the gladius and the glider surfaced triumphantly?

Or was this much more than a war….perhaps it was love at first tentacle? I can see the trailer now “They were born worlds apart. One was a robot, the other a cephalopod. But they could not resist each other’s eerily similar mantles. Join Fabio as Squidmeo and as Lady Ga Ga as Gliderette and revisit the tale of these sea-crossed lovers…”  Maybe my squidmagination has swum a bit wild here.

Of the three gilders, all had barnacles attached to them but this is the only one that came back a brown mess. Some of the scientists on board suggested it could be squid ink, although no formal taste tests were conducted. The glider was part of SPURS, an experiment to measure the saltiest part of the ocean. But as suggested by Ben Jokinen, the glider technician, all that may have been sampled were the “salty, salty tears of the squid when we we took his yellow lover away from him.”

Thanks to Ben Jokinen and the IOP Lab at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory for the pictures of the squid-handled glider.

The post Was there an epic war or an epic romance between this robot and a squid? first appeared on Deep Sea News.