ALBA 14 a long term low cost glider with water sampling capabilities

The concept of ALBA vehicles has been developed under the consideration of long term autonomous instrumentation for oceans research applications. Among their prospective missions, there are three of particular interests: water column survey, early event detection (oil spill and HAB) and water sampling, The concept of hybrid vehicles has been already proposed in diverse works [12]. The advantages provided by combining the capabilities of gliders, as a robust long term platforms, and self-propelled vehicles (AUV), with their great maneuverability promises interesting possibilities. A reduced payload capacity is then the drawback in hybrid vehicles since they should reserve additional space for housing all the different sub systems. In addition, external appendages and navigation systems such wings, propeller, propeller duct, etc. introduce additional drag and interference in the optimal seagoing efficiency in both modes of operation. Low cost concept applied to ALBA project allows the possibility of focusing on the research of interest, overshadowing the problems associated to the conservative strategy of avoiding planning mission where the vehicle safety could be compromised. A high number of low cost vehicles can simultaneously be deployed at the same cost than few units of standard commercial underwater autonomous vehicles AUV and Gliders. Keeping in mind that cutting edge capabilities usually provided by these commercial vehicles are not always required, the proposal vehicle Alba 14 SGL can fill the gap in the research community, providing interesting approaches to new prospective of surveys that, due to the high cost of commercial vehicles, had not been considered before. Continuing with this concept prototype of a glider Alba-14 has been designed and built as a test bed for testing its capabilities and feasibility of the low cost concept applied to unmanned vehicles for ocean research.