Sri Lanka is an island, located in the Indian Ocean, which has an ocean approximately 8 times in Sri Lanka's land area. The coastline waters support highly productive marine ecosystems, and provide a potential economic value to this small nation, which has the unique geographical position that is highly contested by the entire globe. To keep our water ecosystem safe, secure, clean and sustainable, we need to measure various parameters in real-time. There is no modern, affordable, extended duration underwater exploration platforms in Sri Lanka to measure and monitor the water ecosystems. Such equipment is very crucial for scientific research and assessment on an ecosystem.

This project aims to address this need. The glider can glide for weeks or months without recharge, making them ideal for environmental monitoring. As it glides slowly, it doesn't disturb the surroundings, and allows researchers to obtain reliable data. This underwater glider is being developed with the help of an existing open source underwater glider project. Components of the glider were 3D printed, and readily available, low cost hardware was used to make the underwater glider.

The glider has three main systems; buoyancy engines, pitch, and roll. Underwater gliders use a buoyancy engine to change the mass of the glider, allowing it to ascend and descend through the water. Central mass is the weighted part with batteries and tubes. By moving the central mass, an underwater glider changes the moving direction. The motion of pitch and engine are controlled by stepper motors. The control board of the glider is mounted to the back of the underwater glider which uses an atmega microcontroller. The glider uses the battery power and it was used intermittently to power the engine. The basic, functional prototype is done with the temperature sensor to measure the temperature in the ocean.

This prototype can be used for autonomous deep sea explorations with autopilot mission planner, sensor arrays and additional weight with updated hardware. Therefore, this is the initial step of building low cost deep sea exploration underwater gliders in Sri Lanka.

Key words : Underwater glider, Blue Economy, Ocean