- The Ice Dart is a quadcopter designed by researchers at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec to solve a problem that has quietly limited drone science for years: there’s almost nowhere safe to land in the harshest environments on Earth.
- Standard rubber-footed drones start losing grip on slopes as gentle as 9 degrees, and the steeper the slope gets, the less of the drone’s own weight presses it into the surface – on a 60-degree wall, gravity only pins the aircraft down with half its usual force.
- Instead of burning battery to hover indefinitely, a perching drone lands, shuts down its noisiest systems, and turns into a fixed sensor for as long as it needs.
Video: Cat-clawed drone is the first to land on near-vertical ice walls
