Unmanned flight

Scientists at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in collaboration with the Technical University of Braunschweig (TUBS), Germany have completed the first ever series of flights by autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Antarctica.

This is the first time that unpiloted UAVs have been used in the Antarctic and the successful flights open up a major new technique for gathering scientific data in the harshest and remotest environment on Earth.

'Apart from take-off and landing, when the UAVs are controlled by radio, they are completely autonomous, flying on their own according to a pre-programmed flight plan. Each flight lasts for 40 minutes, covering around 45km and taking 100 measurements a second,' said Dr Phil Anderson of BAS.

The UAVs successfully completed 20 flights between October and December 2007, including four over the Weddell Sea. They were fitted with instruments to record the exchange of heat between the lower atmosphere and sea ice. During the Antarctic winter, the Weddell Sea freezes, and because of its bright white colour, the ice reflects heat and helps to cool the planet. However, sea ice is a major unknown feedback mechanism in the Earth’s climate system and scientists need to discover more about it and its sensitivity to climate change.