In an effort to find a way to safely place a tracker on an iceberg without getting too close to what can often be “unpredictable masses of floating ice,” Holyrood, Newfoundland and Labrador-based RPM Aerial Services, along with a GPS manufacturer in Nova Scotia, recently used a UAS to place a GPS tracker on an iceberg.

The iceberg was about two kilometers outside Petty Harbour, which is another town in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

According to Brian Lundrigan, who started RPM Aerial Services, which is a remotely piloted aerial service company, this pilot project was far from easy.

“It was fairly challenging,” Lundrigan says via CBC News.

“The biggest difficulty was depth perception when you're a distance away from the iceberg, trying to see how close you are.”

Lundrigan operated the UAS from a boat about 100 meters away from the iceberg, and the UAS was flown with the 800-gram tracker dangling from a 15-meter rope.

The tracking unit had to be carefully placed on the iceberg, being that operators can’t drop anything from UAS because of federal regulations.

“Traditionally GPS trackers have been put on icebergs by other means,” Lundrigan adds. “We believe UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] technology could be used to do this cost-effectively and safely.”

Lundrigan used a 3D printer to create a “custom carrier for the tracking unit,” which was attached to the UAS by a rope.

After placing the tracker on the iceberg, the next challenge was keeping it on the slippery surface of ice. To address this issue, spikes were added to the carrier, and it was designed to roll so that they would know when it came off the iceberg.

The tracking unit stayed on the iceberg for 12 hours before slipping off.