Dozens of representatives from Oklahoma State University and three other universities taking part in a $6 million dollar study of drones and their use in weather research met recently in Stillwater.
About 65 faculty and students are working under a $6 million federal government grant to develop unmanned aerial systems for weather research. The program held test flights for the NSF CLOUD-MAP project.
The money comes from the National Science Foundation and funds the Collaboration Leading Operational UAS Development for Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics. OSU is working with the University of Oklahoma, the University of Kentucky and the University of Nebraska.
One of the major efforts of the program is to provide more accurate severe weather warnings through the use of the drones.
“CLOUD-MAP will allow meteorologists and atmospheric scientists to use unmanned aircraft as a common, everyday tool,” explained Jamey Jacob, the project’s lead investigators and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at OSU. “Affordable robust unmanned systems will make collecting atmospheric data in the lower atmosphere practical.”
The meeting focused on the testing of instruments carried by UAV’s for collecting atmospheric information. It also gave researchers a chance to meet and compare UAV systems that each university has developed. More than a dozen of the UAVs were brought to Stillwater and some of the flights occurred at an Oklahoma Mesonet weather station west of Stillwater where conditions were more challenging because there was no runway.
The partners made nearly 250 flights over a three-day period.