Sustainable energy at the 100 W level for scientific sites on the Antarctic Plateau: lessons learned from the Polar Experiment Network for Geospace Upper atmosphere Investigations-Automatic Geophysical Observatory project.
The need to provide power to unmanned instrumentation over the course of an entire year on the Antarctic plateau presents a large number of engineering and logistical challenges. Designs formulated in ideal laboratory environments often fail in the Antarctic due to the harsh operating conditions, and field experience is necessary to achieve year-round operation in the 100 W power range. In this paper we present our current power design for the Automatic Geophysical Observatories; a design based on over two decades of experience on the ice and allows for relatively continuous operation at the aforementioned power level. We also discuss our various implementation methods, both failures and successes, in an effort assist other unmanned deployments on the ice.
Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 101 Tiernan Hall, Newark, New Jersey 07102-1982, USA.
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Melville
Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 101 Tiernan Hall, Newark, New Jersey 07102-1982, USA.
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Stillinger
Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 101 Tiernan Hall, Newark, New Jersey 07102-1982, USA.
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Gerrard
Department of Physics, Siena College, Loudonville, New York 12211-1462, USA.
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