UAV Probes Antarctic Ice

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A group of researchers from the University of Kansas is testing a system they’ve devised that includes a 100-watt ice-penetrating radar carried aboard a small UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle).

The team from the Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets arrived recently at the sub-glacial Lake Whillans field camp on the Whillans Ice Stream in Antarctica.

Probing glacial ice with radar is usually done both by towing radar equipment across the ice and by flying it over the ice on airplanes. Synthetic-aperture approaches have even been used. This is the first time , however, anyone has obtained radar soundings of ice using a small UAV.

The aircraft was designed by the researchers themselves and has a unique look. Despite being unmanned it includes a cockpit, which was derived from earlier work the group did using an ordinary radio-control model that could be bought off the shelf: a 1/3-scale Yak 54. The Yak 54, well known in modeling circles, is based on a 1990s-era aerobatic aircraft produced by the Moscow-based Yakolev Aircraft Corporation.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

The radar soundings were done using a somewhat larger airframe. The aircraft, which these researchers refer to as the GX1, weighs 37 kilograms in all, including 2 kilograms of radar gear, which can be operated on two bands: 14 and 35 MHz.

According to UAS Vision the plane takes off and lands under the control of what some UAV operators refer to as an “external pilot,” meaning someone who is on the ground looking up at the plane rather than flying it while looking at a video feed being transmitted from the air.

Once it’s airborne the pilot can put the plane into a largely autonomous mode, in which the plane’s autopilot takes over and flies to whatever waypoints are commanded. The little aircraft has an operational range of about 200 kilometers, running on just a few liters of fuel.