Automated Slocum Mission Pipeline using Slocum Fleet Mission Control

Automating the operation of underwater gliders reduces reliance on human glider pilots, particularly during long missions. Extant planning algorithms for underwater gliders allow glider pilots to quickly generate optimal plans for given missions. However, current operating practices still require continuous oversight and intervention by glider pilots. There is also little published work on automated glider operations during real-world sea trials. In this paper, we present an automated pipeline that plans, executes and post-processes Slocum glider missions, and handles end-of-mission events without the glider pilot’s intervention. Our pipeline uses the Slocum Fleet Mission Control (SFMC) software to communicate with the Slocum glider via the recently provided Application Programming Interface (API) feature of SFMC. We tested our pipeline in a sea trial by having it perform a series of different Slocum underwater glider missions. The sea trial showed that it could execute missions that were long as 24 hours without human intervention. This paper is the first to demonstrate an automated mission pipeline using SFMC and its API feature. Our pipeline is a significant step towards further automation of Slocum glider operations.