Online Navigation Planning for Long-term Autonomous Operation of Underwater Gliders

TL;DR

This paper presents an uncertainty-aware online navigation planning system for underwater gliders, enabling long-term autonomous ocean sampling with real-world validation and improved operational efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic shortest-path MDP formulation and a Monte Carlo Tree Search-based planner for real-time, uncertainty-aware glider navigation in large-scale deployments.

Findings

Validated in two North Sea deployments totaling 3 months and 1000 km.

Achieved up to 9.88% longer dive durations and 16.51% shorter paths.

Statistically significant path length reduction of 9.55% in field deployment.

Abstract

Underwater glider robots have become indispensable for ocean sampling, yet fully autonomous long-term operation remains rare in practice. Although stakeholders are calling for tools to manage increasingly large fleets of gliders, existing methods have seen limited adoption due to their inability to account for environmental uncertainty and operational constraints. In this work, we demonstrate that uncertainty-aware online navigation planning can be deployed in real-world glider missions at scale. We formulate the problem as a stochastic shortest-path Markov Decision Process and propose a sample-based online planner based on Monte Carlo Tree Search. Samples are generated by a physics-informed simulator calibrated on real-world glider data that captures uncertain execution of controls and ocean current forecasts while remaining computationally tractable. Our methodology is integrated into an autonomous system for Slocum gliders that performs closed-loop replanning at each surfacing. The system was validated in two North Sea deployments totalling approximately 3 months and 1000 km, representing the longest fully autonomous glider campaigns in the literature to date. Results demonstrate improvements of up to 9.88% in dive duration and 16.51% in path length compared to standard straight-to-goal navigation, including a statistically significant path length reduction of 9.55% in a field deployment.