Photo: Windracers & British Antarctic Survey

This week, a team arrived at Rothera Research Station, on Adelaide Island to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula, ready to start testing the new Windracers ULTRA autonomous drone in Antarctica. If successful, the new drone platform could represent a major addition to the British Antarctic Survey’s scientific capability on the frozen continent – offering the potential to do more science at a lower cost, with a lower carbon footprint than traditional crewed aviation.

Designed for extreme environments, the Windracers ULTRA UAV (uncrewed aerial vehicle) is a fully autonomous, twin-engine, 10-metre fixed-winged aircraft, capable of carrying 100 kg of cargo or sensors up to 1000 km. Incorporating a high level of redundancy, the ULTRA can continue to fly even if one of the engines or components is damaged or fails, and has been designed to be fixed in the field with a minimal number of parts.

The drone can take off, fly and land safely with minimal ground operator oversight thanks to its sophisticated autopilot system Masterless™, developed and patented by Distributed Avionics. Offering a lower-carbon impact than traditional crewed aviation, the ULTRA UAV stands to play a key role in BAS’ plans to reach net zero by 2040.

If implemented, the drones will be used as a primary tool for airborne scientific surveys, making the most of the flexible configuration available in the platform for a range of scientific instruments. As it stands, the British Antarctic Survey undertakes much of its survey work with Twin Otter aircraft. While the Twin Otters operate under an intense logistics and science regime during the field season, the drones could enable dramatic increases in flight time and geographic coverage while yielding a reduction in CO2 emissions per flight hour of around 90%.

Antarctica: Climate change impact to be mapped by robot plane

Thanks to David Rye for contributing to this post.