A team of Canadian roboticists from Université de Sherbrooke has developed Ice Dart, a spider-like drone that can land on and cling to steep icebergs and glaciers using retractable microspines inspired by cat claws. The 2.65 kg carbon-fiber drone successfully perched on slopes up to 58 degrees at landing speeds of three meters per second, with a 100 percent success rate even in 30 km/h winds, during tests on Iceland's Fjallsjökull glacier. Published in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics, the research aims to let drones perform long-term, silent, low-power monitoring of icebergs for calving and movement studies, complementing satellite and ship-based tracking. The drone is slated for deployment during a Canadian Arctic mission this August to validate ship-based iceberg-detection systems.
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How steep a slope can a drone with microspine landing gear grip on ice?
The Ice Dart drone, developed by researchers at Université de Sherbrooke, successfully perched on icy slopes of up to 58 degrees during tests on Iceland's Fjallsjökull glacier. It landed at speeds up to three meters per second with a 100 percent success rate, even in wind speeds of 30 km/h, using retractable spines in its feet that penetrate the ice on impact. daily.dev surfaces robotics research like this for engineers tracking advances in field robotics and drones.