The St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS), together with the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University and the Russian company "R-Sensor", presented a prototype of an unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a seismometer and a mechanism for burying it in the ground. The development is aimed at automating geological exploration in hard-to-reach Arctic regions and can radically simplify the collection of seismic data in extreme conditions.
Traditional seismic exploration methods today still depend on wired measuring systems, requiring the involvement of hundreds of specialists, complex logistics and significant time costs. This problem is particularly acute in remote areas with developed infrastructure - for example, in the Arctic, where climate, transport isolation and lack of communication complicate field work many times over.
The new drone, developed as part of a project supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, is capable of autonomously performing tasks for deploying seismometers and providing more reliable contact with the surface through a burial system. This allows you to obtain high-quality seismic data without the need for physical presence of operators at each measurement site.
The design of the device and the software for coordination with other unmanned platforms were created in the Laboratory of Autonomous Robotic Systems of SPIIRAS - a division of the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Scientists are already testing the prototype in conditions close to the Arctic and plan to further optimize the system for use in industrial geological exploration.
Read more materials:
Now on home
Start of deliveries scheduled for 2027
Over 51,000 new motorcycles were sold in Russia in 2025
The car will take at least a year to assemble
The application's audience has reached 20 million users
The model will be included in the list of cars for taxis, price - from 2.25 million rubles
All parking lots of the "Administrator of the Moscow Parking Space" are connected to the service
The cars will be supplied to the Moscow Transport Service Directorate
Deliveries to India may begin in 2028
The technology provides automated search for all types of defects in power units
The plane flew 500 km, accelerating to 425 km/h
The plant stated that the information about the termination of purchases for models 6 and 8 is not true
Scientists are using the "Ekran-M" installation