The thermal glider in action
Washington: A seagoing glider that uses heat energy from
the ocean to propel itself is the first “green” robot to explore the
undersea environment, US researchers said on Thursday.
The
robot, dubbed the thermal glider, has crisscrossed the 13,000-feet-deep
Virgin Islands Basin in the US more than 20 times since it was launched
in December. And it could keep going on its own for another six months,
the team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Webb Research
Corporation predicted.
“Gliders can be put to work on tasks that
humans wouldn’t want to do or cannot do because of time and cost
concerns,” said Dave Fratantoni of Woods Hole. “They can work around
the clock in all weather conditions.”
Such robots can carry
sensors to measure temperature, salinity and biological productivity.
They usually surface from time to time to fix their positions using GPS
and to communicate via satellite to a laboratory.
Most gliders rely on battery-powered motors and mechanical pumps, the
researchers said.
The
thermal glider, however, draws its energy from the differences in
temperature between warm surface waters and the colder, deeper layers
of the ocean.
The heat content of the ocean warms wax-filled
tubes inside the engine. The expansion of the warming wax converts heat
to mechanical energy, which is stored and used to push oil from a
bladder inside the vehicle’s hull to one outside, changing its
buoyancy. Cooling of the wax at depth completes the cycle.
“We are tapping a virtually unlimited energy source for propulsion,” Fratantoni
said.
He
said data collected by the glider would help researchers understand how
eddies in the region affect ocean circulation and move around the
larvae of fish as well as pollutants.
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