More Operational Radiosonde SEnsors ( MORSE)

大多数人都见过气象气球。气象气球为现代科学提供了一个重要的武器，用于测量大气层以进行天气预报。事实上，气球携带的科学测量仪器有着非常悠久的历史，可以追溯到十八世纪载人飞行的起源。许多基本的发现都是使用科学气球取得的，因为它们将早期的研究人员或他们的仪器带到了未探索的前沿。在其他发现中，如大气层的分层，科学气球直接促进了太阳系外高能粒子的发现-宇宙射线。它们能够提供有关大气组成的信息，并揭示大气的不同部分在哪里。世界各地每天都有数百个气象气球升空。然而，尽管它们配备了电池，无线电发射机和天气传感器，但它们的工作寿命短而苛刻，但它们很少用于天气测量之外的任何事情。有些被用来测量臭氧层的厚度，有些被用来探测雷暴的电结构，但在全球范围内，它们作为科学资源的使用不足。现有的每日气象气球飞行只需要很少的额外费用，也不需要额外的接收设备，就可以提供一个新的科学测量网络。这可能包括大气的化学成分，发现湍流影响飞机安全的地方，以及发现云滴是否正在形成。为了利用这一未充分利用的科学资源，需要新的紧凑和廉价的传感器进行测量，以及将传感器与气象气球集成的方法。大多数传感器是电子的，并提供代表它们测量的量的电压。这些电压可以转换成信息，通过气象气球的无线电系统传输。在英国使用的现代气象气球系统确实包括用于这种额外信号的备用容量，但除了偶尔的臭氧测量外，几乎从未使用过。通过使用包括微型计算机的简单接口电路，可以使额外的测量能力可用于将附加传感器的测量结果传送到接收站计算机。幸运的是，除了所需的实际传感器和气象气球上的接口电路之外，只需要软件就可以使用气象气球站点已有的标准设备来检索这些额外的测量值。因此，与飞行飞机的成本相比，加强气象气球网络产生了一种相对便宜的方法，可以获得广泛的大气化学和物理测量。另一个有益的方面是，气象气球不受飞行计划和飞机规则的复杂性的影响，这些规则甚至限制了机器人飞机。气象气球发射许可很容易获得，允许在短时间内对变化的条件进行测量。本计画将首先设计并制作一个一次性的介面系统，将新的科学感测器连接到气象气球上。由于现在有许多可能的传感器可用，它将是灵活和可编程的。由于气象气球几乎总是最终丢失，传感器和接口系统都需要便宜。这是可能的，因为现在有各种各样的电子设备。第二，该项目将试验用传感器来测量太阳辐射、云滴、云滴上的电荷和局部湍流运动，并通过地面测量和在气象雷达附近飞行进行测试。首先选择这些传感器是因为它们将提供有关云的信息，云除了给我们提供天气信息外，也是气候系统的一个关键要素，必须更好地了解。

Most people have seen a weather balloon. Weather balloons provide an important weapon in the armoury of modern science for measuring the atmosphere to make weather forecasts. In fact balloon-carried scientific measuring instruments have a very long history, extending back to the origins of manned flight in the eighteenth century. Many fundamental findings have been made using scientific balloons, as they conveyed early investigators or their instruments to frontiers of the unexplored. Amongst other discoveries such as the layering of the atmosphere, scientific balloons directly facilitated the discovery of high energy particles originating outside our solar system - cosmic rays. They are able to provide information on what makes up the atmosphere as well as revealing where the different parts of the atmosphere are. Hundreds of weather balloons are launched every day around the world. However, much as they are well-equipped for their short and harsh operating life with batteries, a radio transmitter and weather sensors, they are rarely used for anything more than weather measurements. Some are used to measure the thinness of the ozone layer, and some have been used to probe the electrical structure of thunderstorms, but globally they are under-used as a scientific resource. For little extra cost and no additional receiving equipment, existing daily weather balloon flights can provide a new network of scientific measurements. This could include the atmosphere's chemical composition, finding where turbulence affects aircraft safety and discovering if cloud droplets are forming. To harness this under-utilized scientific resource requires new compact and inexpensive sensors for the measurements, and a method to integrate the sensors with the weather balloons. Most sensors are electronic, and provide voltages representing the quantities they measure. These voltages can be converted to information for transmission over the weather balloon's radio system. The modern weather balloon systems used in the UK do include spare capacity for such extra signals, but this is hardly ever used other than for occasional ozone measurements. By using simple interface circuitry including a miniature computer, the extra measuring capability can be made available for the additional sensors' measurements to be delivered to the receiving station computer. Fortunately, beyond the actual sensors required and the interface circuitry on the weather balloon, nothing more than software is needed to retrieve these extra measurements using the standard equipment already at weather balloon sites. Compared with the cost of flying aircraft therefore, enhancing the weather balloon network generates a relatively cheap method of obtaining widespread atmospheric chemistry and physics measurements. Another helpful aspect is that weather balloons do not suffer from the complications of flight plans and aircraft regulations which restrict even robotic aircraft. Weather balloon launch permissions are readily obtained, allowing measurements at short notice in response to changing conditions. This project will, firstly, design and make a disposable interface system to connect the new science sensors to the weather balloon. As many possible sensors are now available, it will be flexible and programmable. Because weather balloons are almost always ultimately lost, both sensors and interface system need to be cheap. This is possible because of the wide range of electronic devices now available. Secondly, the project will experiment with sensors to measure solar radiation, cloud droplets, the charge on cloud droplets and local turbulent motion, tested against surface measurements and by using flights near weather radars. These sensors have been chosen first as they will provide information on clouds, which, as well as giving us weather, are a key element of the climate system which has to be better understood.