A sentinel is defined as a guardian who keeps watch. The Sentinel Glider earned its name for being engineered to keep watch of the ocean and provide key scientific information needed to save the world from climate driven disasters.
The Sentinel Glider is the next evolution in our ability to explore the world’s oceans. Developed by the Teledyne Webb Research Lab, it is an upgrade from the previous Slocum Glider in every aspect – from the distance it can travel in one journey to the amount of weight it can carry in its payload. The improvements made within the Sentinel Glider will allow for more research to be conducted with gliders across the world.
Improvements such as the increased payload will allow for more instruments to be carried in one deployment, expanding how much data the glider can collect. Additionally, larger batteries mean that deployments can last longer and go further than ever before which expands the scope of where a mission can go. Additionally, an increased speed means that more distance can be covered in one deployment, making the vast oceans much easier to collect large data samples on. These are just some of the benefits researchers will have as Sentinel Gliders begin being deployed across the ocean!
The first operational Sentinel Glider was given to the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University for a mission: complete the world’s first circumnavigation mission with an autonomous underwater vehicle. This tremendous task expands upon previous successes in completing the first trans-Atlantic glider mission in 2008, and Rutgers students and faculty are ecstatic at the chance to make history once more.
The idea of a robot traveling across the entire ocean was previously an impossible task due to the extreme distances it would need to cover – ultimately traveling thousands of miles without any ability to stop and be recharged or inspected for potential problems. This is now a possibility with the Sentinel Glider, whose range and power capacity has been massively upgraded from previous glider models. With the Sentinel Glider, we are able to push the boundaries that were once impossible to pass.