AI Goes to Antarctica
- By Lachlan Colquhoun
- January 17, 2023
Most people might think that the only thing AI and Antarctica have in common is that they begin with the first letter of the alphabet. The reality is quite different.
AI and robot technologies are increasingly used in various research projects and operations in Antarctica in unique applications by multiple nations.
Australian researchers, for example, are using AI and machine learning to detect the ‘D-calls’ of Blue Whales in sound recordings, hence training an algorithm with greater accuracy and speed than humans.
The team from the Australian Antarctic Division is working with the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at Cornell University and Curtin University in Western Australia. They are using the technology to analyze hundreds of thousands of hours of recordings of whales to understand trends in their populations better as they recover from whaling.
British researchers are also using AI to understand how Antarctica’s so-called Doomsday Glacier — also called the Thwaites Glacier — is degrading and changing under the impact of climate change.
Using radar photographs of the glacier, AI detects crevasses developing in the ice and tracks fractures.
The British Antarctic Survey has created an AI Lab, a cross-disciplinary group of scientists and engineers developing AI and digital twin technologies for polar research challenges.
These methods are now embedded across many areas of BAS science and engineering. Their uses span oceanography, climate science, water security, space weather monitoring, iceberg tracking and decarbonization.
Testing robotics in space
Australia’s research efforts have more recently extended to robotics. In January, Australia announced that Professor Peter Corke, a robotics expert from the Queensland University of Technology, will work with the Australian Antarctic Division for six months to identify opportunities to utilize robots in different parts of the Australian Antarctic Program.
Professor Corke is an electrical engineer and co-director of the QUT Centre for Robotics. In 2021, he became involved in developing a robot prototype to assist astronauts in moving cargo and conducting routine inspections and inventory surveys inside the International Space Station and the Lunar Gateway to the Moon.
“Every time we talk to people about the latest ‘toy’ and ask ‘how does it go in the ice?’ the conversation stops”
“My space station project has interesting parallels to Antarctic stations,” Professor Corke said.
“Astronauts, like Antarctic expeditioners, are expensive to look after and have limited time to get important work done. So if you can use robots to do things like tote cargo, you free them up to do higher value work.”
Right robot for the job
So, what sorts of robotic technologies will we see in the future?
“The Australian Antarctic Program needs robots to measure things, collect samples and move things from one place to another,” Professor Corke said.
“So it’s about picking the right machine to do the job — whether that’s an underwater glider, an autonomous sailing vessel, an aerial drone, or something else.
Among the technologies and applications being considered are:
- Drones for whale tagging and tissue sampling
- Autonomous ground vehicles for soil sampling or traveling to and servicing remote campsites
- Autonomous aerial vehicles for long-range geophysical surveys of the ice sheet
- Underwater vehicles to survey beneath the sea ice or to upload data from seafloor moorings and recharge or service them
- Automated image analysis of seabird nests and fish ear bones
- Inspection and cleaning of infrastructure, such as fuel or water tanks.
“In terms of science, primarily the robots would be taking sensors to places that are important for understanding the state of the Southern Ocean or Antarctica,” Professor Corke said.
“This could include places where it’s dangerous or impossible for humans to take them, such as under the ice. Or it could be places where it’s more cost-effective to send a robot, such as collecting data from a penguin-monitoring camera or a whale acoustic mooring.
“In other operational areas, robots could be used to move people or supplies over the ice, to move equipment and supplies around a warehouse, or they could even help in the kitchen or with maintenance.”
Polar Technology Manager, Lloyd Symons, said the ability to connect with the broader robotic community would solve one of the critical challenges faced in Antarctica.
“Every time we talk to people about the latest ‘toy’ and ask ‘how does it go in the ice?’ the conversation stops. They don’t do that,” Symons said.
“So we need to take this clever technology and find ways to make it useful for us.”
Lachlan Colquhoun is the Australia and New Zealand correspondent for CDOTrends and the NextGenConnectivity editor. He remains fascinated with how businesses reinvent themselves through digital technology to solve existing issues and change their entire business models. You can reach him at [email protected].
Image credit: iStockphoto/Frans Van Heerden