Starting in 2010, the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) has deployed a Bluefin Robotics Corp. (Quincy, Massachusetts) Bluefin-21 AUV in several dives under Arctic sea ice. All dives were conducted close to AWI's deep-sea observatory, Hausgarten, which is located west of the Svalbard Archipelago in the ice-margin zone of the Fram Strait. Since the ice-margin zone is a highly dynamic environment, it is crucial to track the position of the ice edge to define the AUV's mission parameters. In 2011, a GPS-based tracking system was developed to mark the ice edge and to observe the ice drift before and during an under-ice dive.
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