After testing the UAV performance in Svalbard in March, I realised the original ‘tripod’ landing assembly was not going to cut it for work in the Arctic. To prevent damage from landing in cryoconite holes and to spread the drone’s weight when landing on snow, I have added some ski’s modified from off-the-shelf landing gear for RC helicopters. This also has the added advantage that if one attachment point fails, the UAV is still landable, which is not the case for the tripod design.
As well as the ski’s, I have now added the Red-Edge camera’s down-welling light sensor to the top of the casing. This will automatically correct the images for changes in the ambient light field in each wavelength.
