The US Is Throwing $4 Million at Building an Unmanned Arctic Surveillance System

​Political tension is heating up the frigid North Pole as nations like Canada, Russia, and the US all try to lay claim to the resource-rich region. Now, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has promised cold, hard cash to anyone who can design an unmanned surveillance system able to keep tabs on the area.

According to a DARPA announcement, the agency is looking for "for low-cost, rapidly-deployable, environmentally friendly, unmanned sensor systems […] that can detect, track and identify air, surface and subsurface targets." The reason? To monitor the military and commercial moves that other countries active in the Arctic—namely, Canada and Russia—are making.

"The Arctic is increasingly serving as an area for commercial and military activity," the announcement says. "U.S. capabilities to monitor these activities are limited."

"Systems should sense and report data on air, surface and/or undersea targets to permit detection, tracking and identification of these targets in accomplishing or contributing to a significant military mission," the announcement continues.

The US has a good reason to want to keep an eye on the Arctic's mostly barren landscape. The region contains an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and nearly 17,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. And, unlike Canada, the US has not filed a formal claim for sovereignty over the Arctic and its oil. Although, the US Department of State maintains America's status as "an Arctic nation with important interests in the region."

The filing doesn't specifically mention drones, but that's probably exactly what DARPA is looking for. The DARPA announcement states that proposed systems must be "capable of unrefueled operation in the Arctic environment for at least 30 days."

The ability to refuel in midair has been called a game changer for Arctic surveillance; a 2013 report by Canada's Chief of Defence Intelligence stated that aerial refueling was the only thing standing between Russia, China, and Arctic drone surveillance. Being able to avoid refueling at all would really give DARPA an advantage.

Between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's obsessive search for a 19th century shipwreck to solidify Canada's national narrative of Arctic ownership—not to mention his scientific investments in the same goal—and Putin's promise to increase Russia's military presence in the region this year, the Arctic is heating up politically in some pretty insane ways.

Despite the prime minister's fixation on the Arctic, Canada is still using old technology to monitor it. In 2012, Canada passed on a pitch from the American defense company Northrop Grumman for an Arctic-ready version of its Global Hawk drones. Instead, old CP-10 surveillance planes are currently flying over the region according to officials, The Canadian Press reported.

Canada has tested unmanned drones both on the ground in the air in the Arctic, but those were for search and rescue and troop assistance, not surveillance.

In other words, a working unmanned surveillance system would put the US ahead of Canada in terms of keeping an eye on the contested region and the nations duking it out there.

As the Arctic stakes grow higher and the polar ice melts, potentially freeing up trade routes, the battle for surveillance supremacy in the region promises to only become more tense.