I am not a field scientist. I am a roboticist by trade and study, with my work focusing on building new robots and making them robust. So, you can imagine how insane it was that my first fieldwork was in the most isolated place I’ve ever been to: the southern fjords of Greenland.
It’s risky to get close to the waters near icebergs and glaciers. Large icebergs can tip and flip with a moment’s notice and land on a boat. Glaciers are worse; large chunks of ice can break off from the main glacier and land in the water. However, the risk isn’t actually the ice landing on the boat. When the ice chunk lands into the water, it submerges, and then shoots back out like a cork. If it hits another floating iceberg, it shatters, sending out shards of sharp ice. This is made even worse, since the density of icebergs means that the glaciers need to be approached by a small zodiac, which has little protection to shield researchers from the ice.
The Laboratory of Sustainability Robotics has been developing a robot capable of flying to a location, landing on water, and lowering a sampling tool into the water. This robot is dubbed “MEDUSA,” a Multi-Environment Dual-Robot for Underwater Sample Acquisition. The robot has been in development since 2019, first published in 2020. The robot has had several iterations, with the latest built for this project. We were to use our drone to approach a glacier and sample the water below, where there is little known about the microbial life.
To approach the glaciers within range of our drone, we were taken onboard the research vessel Forel, a fantastic platform. It’s a 28-metre motorised sailboat equipped to be a research platform for environmental sciences, with a clean room, wet lab, dry lab, and general facilities for research. Since it’s smaller than huge oceanic ships, the Forel can get close to the coast and operate within the icy fjords of Greenland.
So not only was this fieldwork to be in Greenland, but we needed to launch our robots off of a boat. I was lucky to work closely onboard with Lachlan Orr, Luca Romanello, and Prof. Mirko Kovac, who have had plenty of field experience across Europe. However, while our team had experience with fieldwork, the south of Greenland is a completely different beast.
Everything is challenging and a learning experience. Simple things such as shipping and logistics are no longer trivial, due to the remoteness of the location. For example, our drone batteries are large, they’re considered dangerous goods, and we can’t bring them with us on commercial flights. We needed special considerations and packing requirements just to ship them to Greenland, months in advance.
Left: Configuring the MEDUSA in the vessel. Right: Loading the MEDUSA for deployment. © 2025 Kevin Holdcroft, all rights reserved
On one of our first flights, we wanted to test operational procedures and scientific protocols. We used a smaller off-the-shelf commercial drone, such that we can test our whole operating method from the boat before using our customised and more complex systems. However, due to the nature of the Greenlandic fjords, the commercial drone didn’t operate as expected. The area was so wide and empty and the water was so calm and glassy, that the cameras onboard for obstacle avoidance couldn’t see anything aside from the drone’s reflection. Thus, the drone thought its own reflection was the ground, and refused to move downwards to land. It was a simple fix which was done mid-flight, but it just gives an impression as to how unique this setting is.
Day in, day out, I was impressed by the adaptivity of the scientists and the crew. Each day was planned the day before, however, everyone was flexible as the weather changes what goals could be achieved each moment. If it was foggy in the morning, we changed what the goal was in the morning to take advantage of clear skies in the afternoon. I think one of the reasons everything ran smoothly is simply that everyone aboard was fantastic beyond the work, which really helped. We only had a short stay on board, but we managed to get everything we wanted to get done, done. We started testing operational procedures and got some preliminary samples, then tested operational procedures and systems with a mid-sized custom drone, and finally flew our drone close to icebergs to sample water for our scientific collaborator. The samples are with our collaborator, Dr Lucas Paoli, now for processing, and I’m excited to see the results!
There are one thousand stories of all the craziness which happened on this trip, but I’m proud of what we achieved. It was exhausting, challenging, and breathtaking. Every moment felt completely surreal and we needed to adapt at every opportunity. At one point, it was so tiring that my cabinmate went to sleep early to get some well-deserved shut-eye, and in his exhaustion accidentally locked me out of our cabin. However, since I couldn’t get in, Luca instead convinced us to see the northern lights instead, which was definitely worth it.
Left: Northern lights above the bay, with icebergs. © 2025 Kevin Holdcroft, all rights reserved. Right: Swimming was a bad idea. From left to right: Kevin Holdcroft, Lachlan Orr, Luca Romanello.
I’d like to thank the Swiss Polar Institute for giving us this opportunity. The success of this project is due to the strong team we have, each in part to Luca Romanello, Lachlan Orr, Gaston Wolfart, Albert Taureg, and Prof. Mirko Kovac, as well as the other scientists on board and our collaborators, Lucas Paoli, Léa Fantini, Laine Chanteloup, and Julia Schmale. I’d like to particularly shout out the members of the Forel crew, who were so accommodating and friendly. The steps we made during this trip were significant, but it is only the start of what’s to come, and I’m already looking forward to what will happen in the future.
Kevin Holdcroft is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Laboratory of Sustainability Robotics at the EPFL & Empa, Switzerland. His fieldtrip took place in summer 2025 with financial support from an SPI Forel Grant.