A Drone‐Borne GPR System for Lake and River Ice Thickness Monitoring

Monitoring ice on water is critical to study global and regional environmental change. However, accurate ice thickness mapping over a water body like a lake is still challenging. In this study, we first develop a drone‐borne ground penetrating radar (GPR) system for ice thickness monitoring. This GPR system comprises a micro vector network analyzer, a Vivaldi antenna, a GNSS module, a microcomputer, and an independent power supply. The whole system weighs 1.6 kg, making it easy to mount on a drone. Then, a combined algorithm based on energy ratio and cross‐correlation analysis is proposed to automatically extract the time delays between the ice surface and bottom reflections, from which the ice thickness is calculated. Finally, laboratory and field tests were conducted in our laboratory and at three reservoirs in China. Results verified that the GPR system could accurately produce high‐resolution ice maps with thicknesses from a few centimeters to ∼one meter. Drilling validated that the relative error of ice thickness estimation is less than 2%. Our findings demonstrate that the developed drone‐borne GPR system provides an efficient and accurate method for monitoring ice thickness over lakes, rivers, and reservoirs.