Drones With Claws Perch on Arctic Icebergs

This article is part of our exclusive IEEE Journal Watch series in partnership with IEEE Xplore.

Microspines are one of many ways to enable robots to latch onto surfaces like walls and ceilings. Now roboticists in Canada are using the mini spikes to get drones to land on a more challenging, remote surface: icebergs.

Like a spider, the Ice Dart can land on and latch onto steep, slippery surfaces such as icebergs and glaciers—an increasingly useful capability as activity in the Arctic increases. The drone can grip onto icy slopes of nearly 60 degrees, which is way beyond what most humans could manage without special equipment.

In a recent study, researchers explained how they developed the Ice Dart drone with a special landing gear that absorbs the impact of a hard landing while holding the drone in place with tiny spines that penetrate and grip the ice.

Published in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics, the study describes how the Ice Dart was able to land on icebergs and a glacier in southeast Iceland. Tests took place amid persistent winds and temperatures of 0 to 10 °C along the ruggedly breathtaking Fjallsjökull (pronounced “FYATLS-yuh-kuutl”) glacier, which empties into a lagoon filled with icebergs. The drone was able to successfully perch at speeds of up to three meters per second and slopes of up to 58 degrees, with a success rate of 100 percent even in wind speeds of 30 km/h.

The researchers were motivated by a desire to allow drones to land almost anywhere in the world, since the availability of safe landing sites is one of the primary limitations on where and how drones can operate. The researchers already have a history of developing drones that can land on fast-moving trucks as well as trailers, boats, and steep roofs.

Ice Perching

“The ability to land rather than hover can fundamentally change how drones are used in the field,” says Alexis Lussier Desbiens, a professor of engineering at Université de Sherbrooke, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, who coauthored the study. “Once a drone has landed, energy consumption drops dramatically, allowing much longer observation periods with a small aircraft. The drone also becomes completely silent and can even reduce or eliminate its thermal and RF signature by shutting down major onboard systems.”

Landing on icebergs specifically allows drones to monitor them for days or months, producing more detailed observation than a quick aerial surveillance mission. This could simplify iceberg tracking compared to methods such as helicopter deployment, dropped instruments, or dart-like tracking devices, and provide another data layer to satellite and ship-based iceberg detection, according to the researchers. It could also provide a means of monitoring icebergs that are otherwise untrackable.

With its carbon-fiber construction, the Ice Dart drone weighs just 2.65 kg and has four legs arranged in an X shape, attached to its body with a pivot joint. Used in the group’s previous drone research, this landing gear disperses energy to reduce impact and overcomes multiple engineering challenges. The friction shock absorbers consist of 38 disks that generate friction torque as the legs move up and down upon impact. This lowers the UAV’s center of mass and helps spread out the kinetic energy of landing, but the real trick comes in the form of two retractable spines on each foot—one for uphill and one for downhill grip. The larger spine engages on the more heavily loaded downhill feet, and the smaller, thinner spine engages more easily on the uphill feet, even under very low loads on steep slopes. The spines only penetrate the ice as the suspension compresses, generating grip and protecting them from high-impact forces.

“The inspiration for the retractable spines in the feet came from looking at a cat’s claws and their ability to deploy only when needed,” says Isaac Tunney, a Université de Sherbrooke postdoc in mechanical and robotics engineering who was lead author of the paper. “I wanted to create feet that would naturally and passively engage their spines in the ice at the right moment, regardless of the drone’s orientation, the surface geometry, or the ice conditions.”

Arctic Surveillance

William D. Harcourt is a researcher at the University of Aberdeen, in Aberdeen, Scotland, focused on Arctic glaciers, snow, and sea ice, as well as the use of remote sensing and machine learning techniques. Harcourt was not involved in the study, but he sees several potentially interesting applications of the technology.

“Near the front of tidewater glaciers, these systems could enable measurement of stress-strain and help us understand calving processes,” says Harcourt. “Drones can be used as a mobile GPS, literally acting as a receiver on the ice, but the system would need to solve tilting issues as 3D change measurements usually required the antenna to be horizontal. However, if these problems can be solved, it could be used to track iceberg movements.”

The researchers want to continue developing the Ice Dart technology for real-world applications, including autonomous landing site selection and an emergency takeoff capability to be used if an iceberg rolls over or breaks apart. This August, the drone will be deployed during a Canadian Arctic mission to land on icebergs, collect data, and help validate ship-based iceberg-detection systems.