Drones are active across broadcasting shoots, industrial sites, and battlefields. Now they have expanded their stage to Arctic icebergs. Canadian scientists have, for the first time, succeeded in landing a drone on a slippery iceberg. The drone, clinging to a chunk of ice, is expected to greatly help research on Arctic glaciers that are rapidly shrinking due to climate change.
Spectrum, published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), said on the 19th that the Ice Dart drone, developed by a research team led by Alexis Lussier Desbiens, a professor at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, safely landed on a steep iceberg drifting in front of the Fjallsjökull glacier in Iceland.
A glacier is hardened snow that has accumulated on land. An iceberg is a chunk of ice that has broken off from a glacier and floats. The drone landed on an iceberg with a 58-degree slope at a maximum speed of 3 meters per second in 0–10 degrees Celsius. It achieved a 100% success rate even in strong winds of 30 kph. The study was published in June in the international journal IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics.
◇Spines on the legs modeled after a cat's claws
Ice Dart is made of carbon fiber and weighs only 2.65 kilograms. Four X-shaped legs are connected to the body through pivot joints. A pivot joint is a form in which one cylindrical axis moves left and right or rotates within a ring with another axis, like the human forearm and upper arm bones. Fixed legs take the full impact when landing, but legs with pivot joints can disperse energy and reduce impact.
Mitigating impact alone is not enough to land on an iceberg. On a flat surface, it can set down easily on four legs, but an iceberg's surface is slippery and steep. It can easily slip and fall into the sea. To land on a slippery iceberg, Ice Dart added another tool to its legs. Using spines on its legs, Ice Dart, true to its name, embeds into the ice like a throwing spear.
Each leg of the drone is equipped with two foldable spines that dig into the ice to create traction. Isaac Tunney, the first author of the paper, said, "The foldable spines on the drone's feet were inspired by a cat's claws, which extend only when needed." The larger, thicker spines engage on the downhill feet, which bear more load, and the smaller, thinner spines engage on the uphill feet. Thanks to the spines, Ice Dart can cling even to ice walls with slopes approaching 60 degrees.
Desbiens said the need for drones is growing, but their utility is limited by the lack of safe landing sites. If they can land even where it isn't flat, they can overcome that limitation. The team has already developed a drone, the Dart, that can land on a fast-moving truck, as well as on a trailer, a boat, and a steep roof. That's thanks to combining shock absorbers with reverse thrust. Ice Dart goes further by overcoming the slope of the landing site.
◇Help for research on glacier collapse and iceberg tracking
A drone that clings to an ice wall can greatly aid research into warming trends in the Arctic and Antarctic. As global warming accelerates, glaciers are collapsing faster, but scientists find it difficult to access the sites. Drones are already being used in polar research, but flight time is limited. Ice Dart can attach directly to an iceberg and, in place of people, track the size of icebergs that have broken off from glaciers and where they go.
Desbiens said, "The ability to land instead of hovering can fundamentally change how drones are used in the field," adding, "Once landed, energy consumption drops sharply, allowing much longer observation with a small craft, and we can also eliminate noise and heat that interfere with environmental monitoring." Once Ice Dart lands on an iceberg, it can provide far more detailed observation data than aerial surveillance for up to several months.
William Harcourt, a professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said, "If a drone is attached to the ice, we can measure how much force acts and in what way when chunks of ice calve from a glacier in contact with the sea." However, he noted that to apply it in real research settings, they need to solve the problem of the drone's antenna failing to remain level when attached to steep ice. The antenna must stay level to measure the three-dimensional changes in the ice chunk and track the iceberg's movement.
References
IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TFR.2026.3698411
Journal of Field Robotics (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.70069