Drone-based meteorological observations up to the tropopause – a concept study

Abstract

Abstract. The main in situ database for numerical weather prediction currently relies on radiosonde and airliner observations, with large systematic data gaps: horizontally in certain countries, above the oceans and in polar regions, and vertically in the rapidly changing atmospheric boundary layer, as well as up to the tropopause in areas with low air traffic. These gaps might be patched by measurements with drones. They provide a significant improvement towards environment-friendly additional data, avoiding waste and without the need for helium. So far, such systems have not been regarded as a feasible alternative for performing measurements up to the upper troposphere. In this article, the development of a drone system that is capable of sounding the atmosphere up to an altitude of 10 km with its own propulsion is presented, for which Antarctic and mid-European ambient conditions were taken into account: after an assessment of the environmental conditions at two exemplary radiosounding sites, the design of the system and the instrumentation are presented. Further, the process to get permissions for such flight tests even in the densely populated continent of Europe is discussed, and methods to compare drone and radiosonde data for quality assessment are presented. The main result is the technical achievement of demonstrating the feasibility of reaching an altitude of 10 km with a small meteorologically equipped drone using its own propulsion. The first data are compared to radiosonde measurements, demonstrating an accuracy comparable to other aircraft-based observations, despite the simplistic sensor package deployed. A detailed error discussion is given. The article closes with an outlook on the potential use of drones for filling data gaps in the troposphere.

UAV Atmosphere Sounding for Rocket Launch Support

“…However, this would extend the use of the system to respond to somewhat different research problems, serving a wider range of purposes than the main focus of the present study. The data gathered from these sensors could be invaluable in diverse areas, such as predicting the spread of fires [ 12 ], studying the impact of terrain obstacles on air traffic, aiding in glider competitions, and analyzing air quality issues like smog. They could also be crucial in studying meteorological phenomena of a local character, such as turbulent wind movement, urban heat islands, or atmospheric inversions.…”

“…This method differed from typical off-the-shelf anemometers, yielding slightly better RMSE accuracy than reported elsewhere. Prudden et al [ 12 ] described the development of a sensor suite for atmospheric boundary layer measurements with a small multirotor unmanned aerial system (UAS), including anemometers, thermometers, pressure sensors, and humidity sensors. The sensor suite was integrated on the sides of a multirotor UAS DJI Matrice M600 and was used to collect data in a variety of atmospheric conditions.…”

“…These flight dynamics are recorded within onboard logs, which can be then read and transformed into wind speed estimations. The literature presented above concerns multi-rotor UAVs only–there are also methods using fixed-wing UAVs, i.e., using a set of probes [ 12 ] or a “wind-arc” method developed in the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University [ 13 ], but these lie beyond the scope of this paper. Performance comparisons between a quadrocopter and a fixed-wing UAV with a lidar used for reference were reported by Bronz et al [ 14 ], and a fixed-wing system UAV system was developed by Witte et al [ 15 ].…”

Development and Testing of a Rocket-Based Sensor for Atmospheric Sensing Using an Unmanned Aerial System

“…More recently, UASs have been explored and evaluated as viable platforms for lower atmospheric measurements [ 22 ] including the use of UASs for systematic meteorological sounding [ 23 ]. Several sUAS platforms for meteorological sounding have been reported more recently in the literature [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. Likely the most developed of these is the CopterSonde [ 27 ] which has a highly integrated measurement system with custom firmware and telemetry for reporting data back to the ground station in real time, as well as integrated software that keeps the sUAS pointed into the wind and reports wind speed and direction based on the inertial measurement unit feedback with an aspirated, shielded set of sensors.…”

“…Fixed-wing UASs typically have longer flight times and distances, sometimes up to or longer than 2 h, which allows for easier horizontal spatial sampling, as well as a variety of fuel types that allow for even longer flight times [ 44 ]. Another recent report, for example, detailed a fixed-wing sUAS capable of profiling the atmosphere to a 10 km altitude with a battery powered aircraft [ 24 ]. There are also commercial add-on systems for meteorology such as the iMET XQ2 which integrates temperature and relative humidity measurements with pressure and geolocation (GPS) data in an integrated package [ 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ].…”