Revolutionizing Weather Forecasting With UAVs

Oklahoma State University, along with the universities of Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kentucky, will share a $6 million four-year grant to develop an integrated unmanned aircraft system that would improve weather forecasting by studying atmospheric physics

The goal of the project, which is funded through the National Science Foundation, is to develop small, affordable unmanned systems, along with a knowledge base, to be used by government and university scientists and private companies to expand the understanding of atmospheric conditions and improve weather forecasting.

"Each of the four primary universities involved brings its own unique expertise needed to make an ambitious project on this scale successful,” notes Dr. Jamey Jacob, professor of aerospace engineering in OSU’s college of engineering, architecture and technology, the project’s principal investigator. 

OSU’s strength is developing unmanned aircraft and autonomous control systems. Oklahoma University’s strength is in meteorology, while Nebraska’s is the understanding of atmospheric physics. Kentucky’s expertise lies in development of sensor technologies and systems integration.

“Use of unmanned aircraft will eventually be a common tool in both meteorology and atmospheric physics, but there is a lot of research that needs to be accomplished first in technical, operational, and regulatory areas for that to happen,” says Jacob.

Today meteorologists primarily rely on radar and ground-based instruments that are unable to collect necessary data in the atmosphere to build better forecasting models. Weather balloons provide information but are limited by how often they can be launched. Though scientists have used large UAVs such as the Predator to study hurricanes, the cost is prohibitive for more widespread study of atmospheric conditions.

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• Technology
• Research
• Meteorology