The aim is to stimulate the development of a monitoring tool for the Polar regions and ultimately to expand scientific research capabilities and climate services in both the Arctic and Antarctic. WCRP hopes the competition will promote technological innovation towards a future cost-effective, autonomous and scalable observing network for ice-covered ocean regions based on a fleet of such platforms. The Polar Challenge will be at least three-fold: in terms of under-ice navigation, endurance and environmental monitoring.
Details on participation and the reward will be provided in the latter half of 2015 on the WCRP website.