Enabling a Citizen Science Contribution to Meterology Using Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as drones, represent new platforms for strategically locating meteorological sensors in the lower boundary layer atmosphere. Advances in battery technology, embedded computing, and autopilot systems have led to turn-key systems requiring no experience prior to operation. Moreover, the proliferation of reliable and low-cost consumer UAS in the last five years has removed several technical barriers the public historically faced towards research, commercial, and recreational use. As of January 2018, there were over 1,000,000 small UAS registrations with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States, while the number of unregistered UAS was likely far greater. The sheer number of platforms operating near the earth’s surface represents an unparalleled opportunity to collect value-added meteorological data that could be used to refine and improve the spatial resolution of weather models. However, several scientific and technical hurdles must be addressed to realize the concept of using small UAS to make a citizen science contribution to meteorology. This project has two main goals. The first goal is to address the challenges associated with a very large array of UAS instrumented with low-cost meteorological sensors. These challenges will be viewed and addressed through the lens of the Four V’s of Big Data (volume, variety, velocity, and veracity) to ensure the right amount of data are collected at the proper rate with an appropriate level of certainty to make meaningful contributions to weather modeling, simulation, and forecasting. The second goal is to develop early skills in small UAS operations, instrumentation, and data acquisition for a cohort of undergraduate students in engineering and science majors. Anticipated outcomes of this work include an open-source meteorological instrument for broad deployment across the existing small UAS user base, best practices for deployment, and multiple undergraduate students trained in an experiential learning environment.