Development of Autonomous Explorer for Arctic Ice Survey

The decrease in Arctic ice due to global warming has a great impact on the environment. Therefore, investigating the current state of Arctic ice has become an important issue. The goal of this study is to investigate the ice condition by AUV. In order to obtain the global position information of AUV under sea ice, a communication needs to be established between the sea and land across the ice. For that purpose, it is necessary to install a radio tower within the communication range with the AUV on ice. It is practically difficult to install a large number of radio towers. If the radio tower can move autonomously, it will be able to communicate with the AUV. Hence, the purpose of this study was to construct an Arctic Explorer as an autonomously movable radio tower. Here, we would show the concept and operation of the developed Arctic explorer.