UK Windracers ULTRA Autonomous Drone “Flies over Antarctica”
A UK team recently arrived at Rothera Research Station in Antarctica to trial its new ULTRA Autonomous drone, reports a press release. The obvious question: Why is the team there after being best known for its successful medical delivery trials from England’s Southampton to the Isle of Wight back in 2020?
First, the drone is designed for extreme environments including very cold conditions. The ULTRA Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a fully autonomous, twin-engine, 10-metre fixed-winged aircraft, capable of carrying 100 kg of cargo or sensors up to 1000 km.
Second, if these trials are successful, ULTRA could represent a major addition to the British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) scientific capabilities “offering the potential to do more science at a lower cost, with a lower carbon footprint than traditional crewed aviation,” says the release.
The UAV incorporates a high level of redundancy and can continue to fly even if one of the engines or components is damaged or fails. The craft also has been designed to be fixed in the field with a minimal number of parts.
For example, ULTRA can take off, fly and land safely with minimal ground operator oversight due to a sophisticated autopilot system called Masterless, developed and patented by Distributed Avionics. Alongside its lower-carbon impact than traditional crewed aviation, the UAV stands to play a key role in BAS plans to reach net zero by 2040.
These drones could 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,” continues the release.
Presently, the BAS carries out most of its survey work with a Twin Otter aircraft. While these aircraft “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 percent.”
The release continues, “The lower cost and greater safety of flying UAV drones over long periods also makes it possible to collect new and higher-fidelity science data. Furthermore, multiple autonomous drones could be deployed as a single unified system using AI-driven SWARM technology.”
Dr Tom Jordan, a geophysicist from British Antarctic Survey who specialises in airborne data collection, commented, “Demonstrating that UAVs can robustly and routinely collect an array of different data is really exciting for the future of Antarctic science.”
He continued, “Polar science urgently needs extensive new high-resolution datasets to understand the ways the Antarctic ice sheet is changing, and how this will impact communities around the world. This is our first step toward unlocking those logistical barriers.”
Airborne surveys are used for a range of science disciplines relevant to polar climate science and ecology, including geology atmospheric, glaciology and the study of ocean ecosystems. Under this season’s testing phase, the Windracers ULTRA will be deployed to:-
: Survey protected environmentally sensitive areas and assess the marine food chain (krill) using camera.
: Investigate tectonic structures with magnetic and gravity sensors.
: Assess glaciological structures using airborne radar.
: Test an atmospheric turbulence probe for studies of boundary layer processes coupling ocean and atmosphere.
Dr Tom Jordan (Credit: Facebook)
Tom Reed, Autopilot Technology Lead at Windracers Group and a member of the test team in Antarctica, added, “We have spent the last eight weeks completing rigorous tests and training and very much hope to demonstrate that high endurance, high payload autonomous drones have a valuable role to play in the future of environmental research.”
This ground-breaking project is being funded by Innovate UK’s Future Flight 3 Challenge and is part of its pilot program called ‘Protecting Environments with UAV swarms’. It is aimed to demonstrate how advanced drone technology can be used to gather environmental data in Antarctica.
The project is a collaboration between Windracers, Distributed Avionics, Helix Geospace, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, National Environmental Research Council British Antarctic Survey, University of Bristol and The University of Sheffield.
For more information
(Images: Windracers)
For the latest news, insights and content regarding the global Advanced Air Mobility market, please join the following eVTOL Insights channels: WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.
