Long endurance / In service, eleven hulls
Ninety days on station, moving on buoyancy alone, reporting only when it has something worth saying.
- Endurance
- 90 d
- Depth rating
- 1,200 m
- Range
- 3,400 km
DRIFTER does not have a propeller. It changes its own buoyancy and glides, converting vertical travel into horizontal distance, which is why it can stay out for ninety days on a battery a survey vessel would empty in two.
It is the wrong tool for a deadline and the right tool for a question that takes a season to answer. Thermal structure, current shear, the slow arrival of a plume. Things that only exist as a trend.
It surfaces to a satellite pass twice a day and sends a summary, not a dump. Full resolution data stays aboard until recovery. Bandwidth at sea is expensive and most of what a glider records is confirmation that nothing changed.
Sensor stack
- Conductivity, temperature, depth
- Dissolved oxygen optode
- Chlorophyll and backscatter
- Acoustic current profiler
- Passive acoustic recorder
Representative return, single ping
Full specification
DRIFTER, as built
Flown on
Campaigns using this hull
Deployment
DRIFTER deploys from two ports with a short turnaround. Tell us the depth and the question and we will tell you whether this is the right hull.