Abstract
Drone autopilots are naturally suited for real-time iceberg tracking as they measure position and orientation (pitch, roll, and heading) and they transmit these data to a ground station. We powered an ArduPilot Mega (APM) 2.6 with a 5V 11?Ah lithium ion battery (a smartphone power bank), placed the APM and battery in a waterproof sportsman’s box, and tossed the box and its contents by hand onto an 80?m-long iceberg from an 8 m boat. The data stream could be viewed on a laptop, which greatly enhanced safety while collecting conductivity/temperature/depth (CTD) profiles from the small boat in the iceberg’s vicinity. The 10?s position data allowed us to compute the distance of each CTD profile to the iceberg, which is necessary to determine if a given CTD profile was collected within the iceberg’s meltwater plume. The APM position data greatly reduced position uncertainty when compared to 5 min position data obtained from a Spot Trace unit. The APM functioned for over 10 h without depleting the battery. We describe the specific hardware used and the software settings necessary to use the APM as a real-time iceberg tracker. Furthermore, the methods described here apply to all Ardupilot-compatible autopilots. Given the low cost ($90) and ease of use, drone autopilots like the APM should be included as another tool for studying iceberg motion and for enhancing safety of marine operations.•Commercial off-the-shelf iceberg trackers are typically configured to record positions over relatively long intervals (months to years) and are not well-suited for short-term (hours to few days), high-frequency monitoring•Drone autopilots are cheap and provide high-frequency (>1?Hz) and real-time information about iceberg drift and orientation•Drone autopilots and ground control software can be easily adapted to studies of iceberg-ocean interactions and operational iceberg management
Highlights
While the connection may not be immediately apparent, we argue that drone autopilots are naturally suited for high-resolution, real-time iceberg position measurements
We did not use a drone to deploy an iceberg tracker (McGill et al, 2011) nor do we suggest that a drone land on an iceberg
We showed that the ArduPilot Mega (APM), an open-source drone autopilot, can be adapted for use as a real-time iceberg tracker
Summary
Iceberg tracking was first pioneered by the International Ice Patrol https://cgaviationhistory.org/1946-international-ice-patrol/ and summarized in – Icebergs: Their Science and Links to Global Change by. All required documentation to use an open source autopilot as an iceberg tracker can be found here: http://ardupilot.org/
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