For the past few days we have managed to make it onto 3 ice floes (thin slabs of sea ice) suitable for our scientific needs. We have been collecting data such as floe thickness, ice core samples, temperature and salinity under the ice (by dropping the water bottle sized CTD through the ice core hole down to about 80 meters) and I have been put in charge of determining the sea ice density in the area surrounding the floe that we're working on. To do this I use a drone to take lots of photos looking down from hundreds of feet above the ice and mosaic a large region together to create a single shot of the landscape. With this photo we can determine how much ice there is relative to water and, on average, how large the floes are in this region. This is an easy enough process to do on land with good GPS connection but, alas, it is not so easy up here in the Arctic.
Today we set out to survey an ice floe deep inside the ice; we were completely surrounded by dense, packed ice for miles upon miles in every direction. As soon as we got on the floe, Dave and I started to set up the drone to do a 1000 by 1000 foot mosaic. Everything seemed to be working just fine on the drone, GPS was connected, compass and camera aligned; all was looking good. So I pressed the 'Go' button and the drone took off to start its automated flight path. Everything was going according to plan so Dave started to help the rest of the team. I, however, was a bit to nervous to take my eyes off of the controller; I am a kind of liable for this thing and if something goes wrong I would feel responsible. So I kept my eyes on the screen watching the camera scan the ice, as it should, but after a more detailed look I noticed the GPS was not locked on anymore and that the drone was not making any turns or stops to take the photos. I got really nervous and called over Dave and he confirmed that something was definitely wrong; the drone seemed to be moving away from us, fast. I stopped it and scanned all around with the camera to see if I could find the boat - nothing but white ice and dark water in sight. With no GPS and no way to know which direction to fly in, Dave and I were dumbfounded on what to do. A few minutes went by and we still had no way of finding the drone! "I don't know if we can get it back," I said to Dave, and just then I noticed that GPS location popped on and I saw that the drone was half a mile away and I immediately pointed it towards my location and flew straight, just as the GPS cut out again. About 2 minutes later I spotted the boat on the cam, managed to find the floe we were on, wiped the sweat from my brow and landed the drone safe and sound.
It is still unclear why the GPS was going in and out, and why the drone decided to take off speeding in a fixed direction as opposed to hovering at a given spot like it should have done. Let's see if I can figure it out. Stay tuned.
-CL