The Defence Force is looking at buying drones that can cope with harsh polar conditions offshore of Antarctica as international tensions grow while NZDF remains under-equipped to surveill vast swathes of ocean.
It has put out a tender asking companies for information about drone options and what is the lowest temperature they can go.
It said the surveillance drones must be able to take off vertically from a ship -the HMNZS Aotearoa- and be able to operate beyond the line of sight.
"This project is under the umbrella of Maritime Fleet Renewal and will primarily enhance the patrol and surveillance capabilities of HMNZS AOTEAROA in the polar regions of
the Southern Ocean and Ross Sea," said a tender document.
The polar drone tender suggested defence might buy one system with three polar drones that could be added to later.
It was interested in "any airframe de-icing or anti-icing equipment".
No budget was given.
Map of New Zealand maritime areas of interest, released under the Official Information Act. Photo: NZDF/Screenshot
'Front line for strategic competition'
Polar areas can be intensely contested, demonstrated by recent US pressure to take over Greenland.
NATO has been urged to invest in polar-hardened drones for Arctic defence, and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe - a US general - recently called the Arctic a "front line for strategic competition".
Russia monitors its huge northern coast in the Arctic using drones much more cheaply than using regular ships.
'The Australian Strategic Policy Institute four months ago launched the country's first polar security programme to study the Arctic and Antarctic, saying, "The problem for Australia, the US and others is that Russia-as a legal Arctic claimant-and China-not a legal claimant at all-have recognised the strategic power gained from dominating the poles."
The polar tender document showed the NZDF was working in eight areas for uncrewed and autonomous tech, mostly around surveillance. There was no mention of armed drones, though NZDF has said it was looking at integrating drones with a fire control system.
One of the eight projects was investigating long-range surveillance options for the country's maritime area of interest of over 30 million square kilometres including in the Southern and South-West Pacific oceans - the 'Persistent Surveillance (Air) Project'.
For that, a document for "brainstorming" workshops with US and European companies in January said tensions were spreading.
"Rising competition and tensions in the wider Indo-Pacific are playing out in New Zealand's immediate region (Antarctica to the South Pacific)," it said.
"The NZDF must be able to safeguard New Zealand's sovereignty and territorial integrity and protect the security of our immediate region.
"New Zealand therefore has a growing need to enhance its Maritime Domain Awareness."
It relied for now on planes including four new P-8A Poseidons backed up by new Hercules.
'NZDF lacks both diversity of options and quantity'
"The NZDF lacks both diversity of options and quantity of platforms to conduct regular, extended range or long duration operations within our region because of the limited number of aircraft, and the short on-station endurance for long-range tasks," said the workshop document.
So it was looking for new surveillance and response capabilities for use on "both foreign military and paramilitary entities operating on the ocean's surface" to support NZDF and its partners' military operations - then extending out when it could for the likes of fisheries compliance, search and rescue, and to combat drug and people smugglers.
It imagined drones or the like carrying multiple sensors such as infrared, radar and automatic identification sensors that streamed data back to NZ in real time.
It outlined four broad uses including against a "foreign military surface action group" to "provide credible military presence". Another target might be seaborne drug smuggling requiring the ability to track small vessels.
Using it to help conservation posed the problem of few contacts to spot but "very high surface clutter (sea ice)".
This might be a commercially operated system, at least initially after initial delivery around 2028, said the document.
The defence capability plan envisaged spending $200m-450m on drones by 2029.
The NZDF is trying to factor in tech changes over the next 15 years as well as how to manage classified data.
