Dr. Richard Hann

I am a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Department of Engineering Cybernetics, and Director of the UAV Icing Lab. My research focuses on atmospheric in-flight icing on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and on drone applications in the Arctic.

I graduated in 2013 from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, as an aerospace engineer. After almost three years in the petroleum industry as an upstream project engineer, I returned to academia and completed my PhD on icing of unmanned aircraft at NTNU in 2020, as part of the Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Marine Operations and Systems (NTNU AMOS) and the Centre for Integrated Remote Sensing and Forecasting for Arctic Operations (CIRFA).

I have more than a decade of experience with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of ice accretion, icing performance penalties, and ice protection systems on wind turbines and unmanned aircraft, as well as hands-on experience with experiments in wind tunnels, icing wind tunnels and flight tests. I am also involved with the start-up UBIQ Aerospace, where I lead the aerodynamics work on ice protection systems for UAVs.

A red thread in my career has been my interest in the Arctic. Since my first visit to Svalbard in 2012, I have been working on drone-based science in meteorology, glaciology and atmospheric pollution together with the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) and the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS). My mission is to develop and promote drone-based applications for science and industry at high latitudes.

Research interests

Atmospheric icing on unmanned aircraft
Ice protection and ice detection systems
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and icing wind tunnel testing
Drones for Arctic science (glaciology, meteorology, wildlife monitoring)
Atmospheric pollution and long-range transport processes
Cold-climate wind energy

Recent highlights

2026 – Selected as an AIAA 30/30 recipient in the Aerospace Sciences category for my work on UAV icing.
2025 – SESS Report chapter on surging glaciers in Svalbard.
2024 – Organised the 2nd International UAV Icing Workshop in Trondheim.
2024 – Guest editor of a special issue on UAV icing in MDPI Drones.
2021 – SIOS Early Career Researcher Award.