Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC, Columbia) are developing an underwater robot to survey the Antarctic ice sheets from 17 to 12 November.
Gavia robot.
Scientists predict that the Antarctic ice sheet will shrink more than 33 percent by 2100, accelerating the collapse of ice sheets. So far, scientists have been unable to access the icebergs, but the British University team has used a high-tech robot to change that.
" Very few laboratories around the world can investigate the change of ocean space under ice, " said UCLA's Bernard Laval, who heads the UBC submarine research group.
AUV's robot, called UBC-Gavia , is a free underwater mobile robot capable of conducting oceanographic surveys and mapping in a few kilometers. The robot is 2.5m high, 0.5m wide, equipped with temperature sensors, salinity meters, mapping tools, digital cameras and optical water quality sensors.
Andrew Hamilton and Alexander Forrest, two graduate students from Laval Laboratories, will operate the AUV. They planned tasks for the AUV, set the flight path and depth for the robot to track and select the sensors to activate. These instructions are installed on the AUV, then dive under ice to collect data and return to the ice hole at the end of the mission.
Data under ice will allow people to better understand ocean ice interaction, providing valuable information for modeling climate.