Russia Launches Unified Digital Platform for Arctic Shipping
The new system aims to solve two of the Northern Sea Route’s biggest challenges — route planning and ice reconnaissance.
At the XIII Arctic Projects Forum in Russia, officials discussed the launch of a Unified Digital Platform that will modernize navigation along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) — the key Arctic corridor connecting Europe and Asia. Experts emphasized that the main challenge for shipping in the Arctic remains precise planning due to harsh ice conditions and a limited icebreaker fleet.
Smarter Ice Monitoring
To improve ice reconnaissance, Glavsevmorput plans to test-launch a drone-based radar system from an icebreaker. The UAV will capture radar imagery of ice fields and transmit it in real time to the digital platform for analysis.
Ksenia Shoshina, deputy director of the Higher School of Information Technologies at the Northern (Arctic) Federal University, spoke about the newest IT developments for the region. ‘Among them are a service for automatically detecting ice edges, digital tools for the Arkhangelsk Commercial Sea Port, and a rapidly growing center for unmanned systems,’ she noted.
Participants of the panel concluded that the entire Arctic region could soon become a testing ground for unmanned technologies, changing the future of northern shipping.
