Sonardyne underwater positioning technology is supporting a coordinated fleet of autonomous air, surface, and subsea vehicles gathering data on tidewater glacier melting as part of the British Antarctic Survey’s GIANT project.
Running from July into August at tidewater glaciers near Kangerlussuaq Fjord, the GIANT (Greenland Ice sheet to AtlaNtic Tipping points from ice loss) mission aims to map, measure, and monitor environmental dynamics ranging from ocean water temperature to glacier movement.
Led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the initiative involves 15 collaborating institutions and five technology partners, backed by the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) as part of its Forecasting Tipping Points programme. Operating from the UK’s polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, the expedition seeks to uncover how rapidly Greenland’s glaciers can melt and what that ice loss means for global climate systems.
The project represents one of the first missions to treat underwater robots as a coordinated system, deploying long-range, small, and survey Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) together in extreme glacial environments for extended periods.
The deployed assets include the National Oceanography Centre’s AutoSub Long Range (also known as Boaty McBoatface), a Teledyne Gavia operated by the Scottish Association for Marine Science, ecoSUB Robotics AUVs, a DriX uncrewed surface vessel, embedded sub-surface robotic sensors, and aerial drones. Because GPS signals do not work underwater and visibility near glacier faces can be close to zero, maintaining precise position tracking across the fleet is essential.
To establish this critical positioning layer, Sonardyne underwater positioning technology is installed across the support vessels. Sonardyne’s Ranger 2 Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) system onboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough and a Mini-Ranger 2 USBL system on the daughter craft Erebus will track and control formation operations as the AUVs map the submerged faces of the glaciers. This precise acoustic positioning allows the vehicles to operate safely alongside the ice and ensures collected oceanographic data can be accurately mapped and compared.
Dr Pierre Dutrieux, an oceanographer at BAS leading the ocean robotics research on RRS Sir David Attenborough, said, “This is an exciting and ambitious mission using fleets of autonomous vehicles to help us gather data in otherwise extremely hard to access environments. The data they collect will help to transform how we forecast ice loss in Greenland’s fjords and improve early warning systems for tipping points that could reshape our planet’s climate.”
Michelle Barnett, Business Development Manager, Ocean Science, at Sonardyne, added, “In simple terms, GIANT is not just about sending robots closer to the ice, which is ambitious in itself. It is about turning multiple vehicles into a connected observing system capable of gathering measurements scientists have never captured before. By helping those robots operate safely and accurately in one of the harshest environments on Earth, Sonardyne is enabling research that could improve climate models and deepen understanding of a critical global challenge.”
While scientists know that warm ocean water erodes glaciers from below, contributing to sea level rise and potentially affecting major currents in the North Atlantic, detailed continuous observations from the critical zone where ocean meets ice have been exceptionally difficult to gather safely. The multi-vehicle data gathered by the GIANT mission is designed to bridge this gap, feeding near-continuous observations into climate models to better predict sea level rise, ocean circulation shifts, and potential climate tipping points.
