THE COLLABORATIVE C OLORAD O- NEBRAS KA UNM ANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEM EXPERIMENT

The Collaborative Colorado–Nebraska Unmanned Aircraft System Experiment (CoCoNUE) was executed on 1 March and 30 September 2009. The principal objective of this project was to examine the feasibility of using a small unmanned aircraft operating semi-autonomously with an onboard autopilot to observe atmospheric phenomena within the terrestrial boundary layer covered by the United States National Airspace System. The application of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS; the aircraft along with the communications and logistics infrastructure required for operation) is beset by a number of engineering and regulatory challenges. This article discusses the strategies implemented to meet these challenges. Airmass boundaries served as the target of the flights conducted. These atmospheric phenomena have the fortuitous combination of an across-boundary scale that yields a coherent signal in the in situ meteorological data that can be collected by a UAS and an along-boundary scale that can be easily tracked via the exis...

[1]  C. W. Newton,et al.  Dynamics of Severe Convective Storms , 1963 .

[2]  David B. Parsons,et al.  A Review of Convection Initiation and Motivation for IHOP_2002 , 2006 .

[3]  J. Bange,et al.  Measuring the Wind Vector Using the Autonomous Mini Aerial Vehicle M2AV , 2008 .

[4]  V. Chandrasekar,et al.  A Description of the CSUCHILL National Radar Facility , 2000 .

[5]  James A. Brass,et al.  Imaging from an unmanned aerial vehicle: agricultural surveillance and decision support , 2004 .

[6]  P. E. Johnston,et al.  Boundary Layer Development over a Tropical Island during the Maritime Continent Thunderstorm Experiment , 2001 .

[7]  James L. Franklin,et al.  ANNUAL SUMMARY Atlantic Hurricane Season of 2007 , 2009 .

[8]  Storm Motion as Related to Boundary-Layer Convergence , 1979 .

[9]  William M. Farrell,et al.  Lightning optical pulse statistics from storm overflights during the Altus Cumulus Electrification Study , 2005 .

[10]  J. Caruso.  Tornadoes in Nonmesocyclone Environments with Pre-existing Vertical Vorticity along Convergence Boundaries , 2005 .

[11]  James F. W. Purdom,et al.  Some Uses of High-Resolution GOES Imagery in the Mesoscale Forecasting of Convection and Its Behavior , 1976 .

[12]  James W. Wilson,et al.  Initiation of Convective Storms at Radar-Observed Boundary-Layer Convergence Lines , 1986 .

[13]  M. V. Ramana,et al.  Chasing Black Carbon using Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. , 2006 .

[14]  G. J. Holland,et al.  The Aerosonde Robotic Aircraft: A New Paradigm for Environmental Observations , 2001 .

[15]  Eric W. Frew,et al.  The tempest unmanned aircraft system for in situ observations of tornadic supercells: Design and VORTEX2 flight results , 2011, J. Field Robotics.

[16]  Erik N. Rasmussen,et al.  The Association of Significant Tornadoes with a Baroclinic Boundary on 2 June 1995 , 2000 .

[17]  J. Simpson,et al.  Observations and Mechanisms of GATE Waterspouts , 1986 .

[18]  C. Chappell,et al.  A study of tornadic thunderstorm interactions with thermal boundaries , 1980 .

[19]  Jerry M. Straka,et al.  An Adaptation of the Barnes Filter Applied to the Objective Analysis of Radar Data , 2000 .

[20]  Robert B. Wilhelmson,et al.  The Impact of Airmass Boundaries on the Propagation of Deep Convection: A Modeling-Based Study in a High-CAPE, Low-Shear Environment , 2012 .

[21]  James A. Brass,et al.  The UAV Western States Fire Mission: Concepts, Plans and Developmental Advancements , 2004 .

[22]  John F. Weaver,et al.  Multiscale Aspects of Thunderstorm Gust Fronts and Their Effects on Subsequent Storm Development , 1982 .

[23]  Po-Hsiung Lin,et al.  OBSERVATIONS: The First Successful Typhoon Eyewall-Penetration Reconnaissance Flight Mission Conducted by the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Aerosonde , 2006 .

[24]  Steven D. Miller,et al.  The Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle (UAV) Program , 2000 .

[25]  M. V. Ramana,et al.  Warming trends in Asia amplified by brown cloud solar absorption , 2007, Nature.

[26]  Greg Michael McFarquhar,et al.  Nasa's tropical cloud systems and processes experiment : Investigating tropical cyclogenesis and hurricane intensity change , 2007 .

[27]  Michelle Mainelli,et al.  ANNUAL SUMMARY Atlantic Hurricane Season of 2007 , 2008 .

[28]  Robert B. Wilhelmson,et al.  The Numerical Simulation of Nonsupercell Tornadogenesis. Part II: Evolution of a Family of Tornadoes along a Weak Outflow Boundary , 1997 .

[29]  Eric W. Frew,et al.  Net-Centric Communication and Control for a Heterogeneous Unmanned Aircraft System , 2009, J. Intell. Robotic Syst..

[30]  G. Holland,et al.  Applications of Aerosondes in the Arctic , 2004 .

[31]  Charles A. Doswell,et al.  The Tornado : its structure, dynamics, prediction, and hazards , 1993 .

[32]  J. Purdom.  Satellite Observations of Tornadic Thunderstorms , 2013 .

[33]  Jothiram Vivekanandan,et al.  Boundary Layer Clear-Air Radar Echoes: Origin of Echoes and Accuracy of Derived Winds , 1994 .

[34]  Erik N. Rasmussen,et al.  The Occurrence of Tornadoes in Supercells Interacting with Boundaries during VORTEX-95 , 1998 .

[35]  Robert B. Wilhelmson,et al.  A Simulation of the Development of Successive Cells Along a Cold Outflow Boundary , 1982 .

[36]  William M. Farrell,et al.  The Altus Cumulus Electrification Study (ACES): A UAV-Based Science Demonstration , 2002 .

[37]  Louis J. Wicker,et al.  The Influence of Preexisting Boundaries on Supercell Evolution , 1999 .