Lightweight Autonomous Dropwindsonde System for Unmanned Aircraft

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This award continues support for an effort to develop a meteorological dropwindsonde for deployment from unmanned aircraft. During Phase I, a unique, potentially very reliable rotary sonde configuration was developed and tested with releases from unmanned aircraft. During Phase II, the principal investigator and his colleagues will develop the integrating electronics for systems in the sonde and produce 50 prototype sondes. These sondes will be able to measure temperature, humidity, pressure, and winds, and will employ the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system to determine location. A first-generation airborne data acquisition system, which includes high-precision instruments for initializing the sonde instruments (e.g., a Lyman alpha hygrometer to measure water vapor), will be assembled and tested as well. The system will have applications in the areas of hurricane tracking, studies of the tropical water vapor budgets, and meteorological observations in remote areas where rawinsonde coverage is not presently available. Although designed for unmanned aircraft, the system can easily be adapted to almost any manned aircraft. The system could represent a very significant advancement for meteorological observing, both for research and operational purposes.