This is the world’s first unmanned, underwater robot—or “glider”—to cross an ocean basin, the pioneering Scarlet Knight. The robotic glider, also known as RU27, can dive to depths of 200 meters (660 feet) to collect data such as temperature, how salty the water is, and the speed and direction of ocean currents. This helps scientists better understand how the ocean works and how the ocean and the climate are changing, processes that directly impact all life on Earth. Learn more about Scarlet Knight’s historic 2009 Atlantic crossing and how robotic gliders will help Gulf oil spill researchers by detecting oil below the water’s surface in Underwater Robots Explore the Ocean. Scarlet Knight is now displayed at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Robotic Ocean Explorer
Robotic Glider Evades Fishing Nets
Credit: Provided by Rutgers UniversityThis illustration shows how Scarlet Knight, the first unmanned, underwater robot or glider to cross an ocean basin, faced an entire fleet of fishing ships, equipped with nets, threatening the glider’s path across the continental shelf. “Crossing the shelf is like running across the New Jersey Turnpike with your eyes closed,” said filmmaker Dena Siedel in the documentary Atlantic Crossing: A Robot’s Daring Mission. The robotic glider crossed the Atlantic in 2009.
Robot Explores Ocean Eddies
Credit: Provided by Rutgers UniversityThe first unmanned, underwater robot or glider Scarlet Knight maneuvers through the dangerous opposing and circular currents in swirling eddy fields of the Atlantic Ocean to collect data below the waves where satellites cannot see. A satellite communication system in the tailfin sent data to scientists each time the robot surfaced. The data fed a national information network, the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®).
Hurricane Bill
Credit: NOAARobotic gliders allow researchers to collect data in severe weather conditions without risking lives. In 2009 Hurricane Bill passed to the north during the Scarlet Knight’s mission, producing large waves that battered the glider and challenging scientists trying to reach it for an inspection. Following the path of Christopher Columbus’s Pinta, the Scarlet Knight crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed in Baiona, Spain, on Dec. 9, 2009, becoming the first unmanned robotic glider to cross an ocean basin.
Robotic Glider and Barnacles
Credit: Provided by Rutgers UniversityScientists met the robotic glider Scarlet Knight about halfway along its journey of scientific exploration from the United States to Spain, discovering that barnacles were growing on the glider’s body, as this graphic illustrates. As algae began to grow on the glider’s exterior surface, small sea creatures attached, attracting larger ocean predators that could damage the glider. Scarlet Knight is the first underwater robotic glider to complete a trans-Atlantic mission.