Drone research

Every spring, in what is one of the world’s largest migrations, thousands of great white sharks swim from along America’s West Coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean that is half-way in between San Diego and Hawaii. The area is about the size of Colorado and is known among marine biologists as the White Shark Cafe. Not much was known as to why the marine predators hang out here or what they are up to. However, this year we finally got some answers as two Saildrones were sent out there to monitor the great whites.

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Drones are being used to monitor deforestation and to track malaria-carrying macaque monkeys deep in the Malaysian forests. Especially in Borneo, there has been a surge in the deadly ‘monkey malaria’, with the disease accounting for 69% of all the human malaria cases in Malaysia. With the help of drones outfitted with infrared cameras, researchers of the Monkey Bar Project are able to better track the monkeys through the forest and ultimately slow down the spreading of the disease.

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Three drones, called Seagliders, have been positioned underneath West Antarctica’s Dotson Ice Shelf to monitor the ebb and flow of ice autonomously during the Antarctic winter. The drones are part of a larger system designed by a team of scientists from the University of Washington and Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory to study how the Antarctic ice shelf is affected by climate change.

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