On Active Current Selection for Lagrangian Profilers

Autonomous Lagrangian profilers are now widely used as measurement and monitoring platforms, notably in observation programs as Argo. In a typical mode of operation, the profilers drift passively at their parking depthbefore making a vertical profile to go back to the surface. This paperpresents simple and computationally-efficient control strategies to activelyselect and use ocean currents so that a profiler can autonomously reach adesired destination. After briefly presenting a typical profiler andpossible mechanical modifications for a coastal environment, we introducesimple mathematical models for the profiler and the currents it will use. Wethen present simple feedback controllers that, using the direction of thecurrents and taking into account the configuration of the environment(coastal or deep-sea), is able to steer the profiler to any desiredhorizontal location. To illustrate the approach, a few results are presentedusing both simulated currents and real current velocity profiles from theNorth Sea.