Sonardyne helps BAS navigate on GIANT climate mission 

An ambitious climate science mission using marine robots, in formation and closer to glaciers than they’ve been before, sets sail this summer with support from Sonardyne underwater positioning technology.

The GIANT project, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), is investigating how the warming ocean is making Greenland’s tidewater glaciers melt — and what this means for our global climate.

To do this, the UK’s polar research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough will send a fleet of autonomous vehicles – aerial, surface and subsea – as a connected observing system, into one of the world’s most extreme environments to get the most comprehensive data possible.

Sonardyne’s Ranger 2 Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) positioning system onboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough and a Mini-Ranger 2 USBL system on the daughter craft Erebus will be used to track and control formation operation of the mission’s underwater vehicles as they map the glacier’s underwater face.

The underwater vehicles being used include the UK National Oceanography Centre’s AutoSub Long Range (ALR, AKA Boaty McBoatface), a Teledyne Gavia and ecoSUB Robotics autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

The GIANT project involves 15 collaborating institutions, five technology partners and is backed by the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) as part of the Forecasting Tipping Points programme.

Dr Pierre Dutrieux

Dr Pierre Dutrieux is an oceanographer at BAS and is leading the ocean robotics research on RRS Sir David Attenborough: “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: “Our acoustic and inertial systems provide the positioning layer that helps underwater robots know where they are, stay coordinated and return reliable scientific data.

“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.”

The GIANT mission

GIANT stands for Greenland Ice sheet to AtlaNtic Tipping points from ice loss.

The GIANT mission will run from July into August this year at tidewater glaciers near Kangerlussuaq Fjord with a goal to map, measure, and monitor everything from ocean water temperature to glacier movement using autonomous vehicles.

Alongside the underwater vehicles, there will be embedded robotic sensors tracking melting below the surface, a DriX uncrewed surface vessel at the surface and aerial drones surveying the ice from above.

The information they gather will be used to answer a critical question; how fast can Greenland’s glaciers melt—and what does that mean for our climate?

Learn more here.

What is a climate tipping point?

One of the biggest unanswered questions in climate science is deceptively simple: how quickly can Greenland’s glaciers melt—and how much of that melt will reach and disrupt the ocean systems that regulate our weather?

Scientists know that warm ocean water is already eroding glaciers from below, contributing to sea level rise and potentially affecting major currents in the North Atlantic. What they don’t yet have are detailed, continuous measurements from the critical zone where ocean and ice meet—because it’s one of the hardest places on Earth to reach safely.

The GIANT programme is designed to change that.

How new is the use of ocean robots to map glaciers?

GIANT is one of the first projects to treat underwater robots as a coordinated system—deploying fleets of long-range, small and survey AUVs together—in extreme glacier environments, for extended periods.

The aim is not just to collect snapshots of data, but to feed near-continuous observations into climate models, helping scientists better predict how Greenland’s glaciers will respond to a warming ocean—and what that means for sea levels, ocean circulation and future climate risk.

Crucially, this kind of multi-robot operation depends on knowing where each vehicle is at all times—despite the fact that GPS signals don’t work underwater and visibility can be near zero.

This is where acoustic and inertial navigation systems from Sonardyne provide the positioning layer.

Our Ranger 2 and Mini-Ranger 2 USBL systems, installed on the RRS Sir David Attenborough and its daughter craft, Erebus, will enable these multiple robots to work in formation alongside the sides of these glaciers, underwater, safely and so that the data they collect can be accurately mapped and compared.

For GIANT, that positioning confidence isn’t just a technical detail—it’s what turns raw observations into reliable scientific evidence.