Assessing seaglider model-based position accuracy on an acoustic tracking range
Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
6-1-2021
Abstract
Seagliders are buoyancy-driven autonomous underwater vehicles whose subsurface position estimates are typically derived from velocities inferred using a flight model. We present a method for computing velocities and positions during the different phases typically encountered during a dive–climb profile based on a buoyancy-driven flight model. We compare these predictions to observations gathered from a Seaglider deployment on the acoustic tracking range in Dabob Bay (200 m depth, mean vehicle speeds ~30 cm s-1), permitting us to bound the position accuracy estimates and understand sources of various errors. We improve position accuracy estimates during long vehicle accelerations by nu-merically integrating the flight model’s fundamental momentum-balance equations. Overall, based on an automated estimation of flight-model parameters, we confirm previous work that predicted vehicle velocities in the dominant dive and climb phases are accurate to <1cms-1, which bounds the accumulated position error in time. However, in this energetic tidal basin, position error also accumulates due to unresolved depth-dependent flow superimposed upon an inferred depth-averaged current.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
Volume
38
Issue
6
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Bennett, James S., Frederick R. Stahr, Charles C. Eriksen, Martin C. Renken, Wendy E. Snyder, and Lora J. Van Uffelen. "Assessing seaglider model-based position accuracy on an acoustic tracking range." Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 38, 6 (2021): 1111-1123. doi: 10.1175/JTECH-D-20-0091.1.