UAS in Weather Forecasting

Unmanned aerial systems could be used in the near future to improve weather forecasts. Oklahoma State University along with the universities of Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kentucky are working on different aspects of UAS to be able to use them for meteorology. OSU is working on the autonomous function, OU is working on the meteorology part, Nebraska is working on atmospheric physics, and Kentucky is working on sensor and systems implementation.

Weather radars detect the weather by sending out a signal in a circle. As the signal goes out, precipitation scatters the radar waves while some signals come back. This is how weather radar gather data.

Currently, meteorology relies on ground radars and weather balloon readings to make forecasts. The problem with this is that ground radars can't collect the atmospheric data need and weather balloons cannot be deployed very often. This leads to less accurate forecasts.

Weather balloons help forecast the weather by ascending into the sky. Attached to the the weather balloon is a radiosonde which measures atmospheric pressure, temperature, and relative humidity.

In the past, larger UAS, like the MQ-1 Predator, have been used to study hurricanes. Nothing like that has been done with small unmanned vehicles though.

The UAS shown above is a Global Hawk owned by NASA. It has been used to fly over tropical storms and collect data.

If implemented, this could change the way weather is tracked forever. The people at Oklahoma University, who are focused on the actual weather forecasting, envision a world where unmanned vehicles can be used to communicate with navigation systems in cars and potentially offer a safer route if hazardous weather has been detected.

This is the current design for the UAS. 

This kind of technology would help with everything that happens outdoors. UAS delivery services may be dependent on the weather in order to safely deliver their product. If research is successful and this technology is created, it will increase the efficiency of weather forecasts and also potentially be able to collect data that could be beneficial to understanding climate change.