ALSEAMAR has completed delivery of Voice of the Ocean’s (VOTO) first order of five SEAEXPLORER 200 underwater gliders, following the handover of the final unit in Gothenburg on October 13, 2026. The first glider was delivered in November 2025.
Developed through approximately four years of collaboration between VOTO’s operational teams and ALSEAMAR engineers, the SEAEXPLORER 200 is designed for coastal and shallow waters between 5 and 200 meters deep. Its development was informed by VOTO’s experience operating deep-ocean gliders in the shallow, strongly stratified waters of the Baltic Sea.
Compared with 1,000-meter-rated gliders, the SEAEXPLORER 200 offers greater energy efficiency in shallow waters, with a rated endurance of up to 75 days on a single battery or 135 days with the double-battery option. It can also be launched directly from shore and is compatible with SEAEXPLORER 1000 payloads and ALSEAMAR’s GLIMPSE piloting and data collection interface.
With the SEAEXPLORER 200, recovery and redeployment intervals extend from every three weeks to every two months, saving time and resources for VOTO’s operational team, both at sea and for its glider pilots. The organization collects approximately 100,000 vertical water column profiles annually using its existing fleet of 1,000-meter-rated gliders.
Since delivery, the first SEAEXPLORER 200 has completed missions across four Baltic basins: the Bornholm Basin, Eastern Gotland Basin, Arkona Basin, and Northern Baltic Proper. When early indications of a potential major Baltic inflow emerged, VOTO worked with experts from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (IOW), and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) to deploy a SEAEXPLORER 200 and capture the event as it unfolded in the Arkona Basin. Although the inflow did not develop into a major Baltic inflow, the deployment provided an opportunity to demonstrate the new technology’s capabilities.
Olle Glader, Head of Ocean Tech at Voice of the Ocean, commented, “Having a glider that is more efficient in the shallow stratified waters of the Baltic Sea, and also provides longer endurance, makes a huge difference in operational logistics and the science we are able to perform with them.”
Thibaud Bezacier, CEO of ALSEAMAR, added,”Partnerships are essential to advancing ocean observation – by combining complementary expertise, we accelerate the development of innovative techniques that no single actor could achieve alone. Our trustful collaboration with VOTO exemplifies this spirit, bringing together science, technology and shared ambition to better understand and protect the ocean for the benefit of all. The future of innovation lies in the power of collective human intelligence, probably one of the keys to solving our global challenges.“
The SEAEXPLORER 200 is also available to the wider international scientific community, while data collected by VOTO’s gliders is freely accessible through its Observations Portal. The delivery follows a memorandum of understanding signed by ALSEAMAR and VOTO in November 2025, committing both organizations to advancing glider technology and supporting training across the world.
