In September, Sean Bailey, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, led a team of 12 faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students to participate in a Small-UAS Coordination for Atmospheric Low-Level Environmental Sampling (SCALES) measurement campaign in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Teams from government and academic institutions, as well as industry, from across the United States contributed personnel and uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) to conduct the R&D necessary to use small drones in weather data collection in a scalable manner.
According to Bailey, SCALES had two objectives. The first was an urban-centered effort referred to as microSCALES that focused on turbulence and urban heat island impacts within the city. The second was a broader focus referred to as mesoSCALES, which focused on obtaining meteorological measurements over a broader region outside the city to determine the value of UAS-based weather measuring systems to provide advanced monitoring of atmospheric conditions on a routine basis.
Each team was assigned to one of the two objectives. The UK team contributed to the MicroSCALES study of urban turbulence by operating four specialized UAS, capable of accurately measuring atmospheric turbulence at three different sites in the vicinity of downtown Tulsa.
“The team was tasked with measuring urban-induced impacts on atmospheric turbulence and provided important datasets for developing high-fidelity building-resolving weather simulations like those being developed by National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research,” said Bailey. “One of the long-term objectives of this work is to generate the capability to provide weather predictions in support of next generation low-level aviation, including the projected increase in urban air mobility vehicles (air taxis).”
Over the course of the campaign, the UK team gathered a wealth of atmospheric data, conducting 124 flights across all four aircraft for 41 hours of total flight time. All flights were conducted without incident, in coordination with the air traffic controllers at Tulsa International Airport, and under special authorization from the Federal Aviation Authority.
Bailey said researchers are now starting to work through the data acquired during SCALES. The data is being applied to several different research priorities, ranging from assessing the accuracy of individual systems to understanding how the heat generated from urban centers can contribute to storm formation.
SCALES was conducted in support of broader research efforts of the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s (NOAA) Office of Atmospheric and Oceanic Research (OAR), National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), the World Meteorological Office (WMO) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Photo by Sean Bailey
