Case Study: University of Fribourg maps Greenland ice melt with Wingtra

Drone surveying ice melt on the Greenland ice sheet

The University of Fribourg, through researcher Horst Machguth and his geoscience team, needed a better way to study rare but increasingly frequent surface melt events on the Greenland ice sheet and understand where the meltwater goes. They turned to Wingtra and the WingtraOne drone with a MicaSense RedEdge-MX multispectral camera to capture detailed data over the vast ice surface.

Wingtra enabled the team to map melt-prone areas from 400 m (1,300 ft) above the ice, a height that would be difficult for a quadcopter to sustain due to battery limits. The multispectral imagery made the water distribution much clearer, and the team has already processed the first round of data while preparing for additional surveys.

University of Fribourg

Horst Machguth

Researcher