NOAA Unmanned Aircraft
Systems (UAS) Program
Gary Wick, Pacific Testbed Co-lead
Robbie Hood, Program Director
Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
Earth System Research Laboratory
17 June 2009
Outline
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Background/Organization
Missions
NASA Global Hawk
Potential wind lidar applications
Overview
The NOAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Program is
evaluating the feasibility of UAS platforms to meet the
NOAA Mission’s goals in
o Climate
o Weather and Water
o Ecosystems
o Commerce and Transportation
The evaluation will be based on NOAA observational
requirements, technology readiness assessments, UAS
science demonstrations and Analysis of Alternatives for
potential UAS acquisitions
Why UAS?
• Fulfill a key gap in the
existing observing
system
• Hazardous conditions
• Remote areas
• Long endurance
• Stealthy performance
Limitations
• Airspace access
– Flights in US airspace require a Certificate of
Authorization (COA) from the FAA
– Primary limitation is “see and avoid”
– Many current demonstrations in military or foreign
airspace
• Affordability
General Program Plan
• Phase I (FY08-10) : Test and evaluate possible
applications
o Evaluate UAS platforms
o Conduct Analysis of Alternatives for platforms and
concept of operations
o Submit “go/no go” UAS acquisition recommendation to
NOAA management by FY10
• If a “go” recommendation is accepted:
• Phase II (FY11-13) : Acquire and operate a first
set of major UAS
•Phase III (FY14 and beyond) : Expand to global
coverage
NOAA UAS Conference - 19 May 2009
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Personnel
• Matrix team comprised of ~15
team members represented by
OAR, OMAO, NOS, NWS, and
NMFS
• Total staffing budget is ~6 FTE
funded by the UAS Program
• OMAO contributes 1 FTE
• NOS, NWS, NMFS contribute .25
FTE each
• Testbeds are co-led by research
and operational scientists
NOAA UAS Conference - 19 May 2009
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The Aircraft
Science Activities
• Arctic Testbed
– Greenland ice mapping
– Ice seal observations
• Gulf / Atlantic Testbed
– Hurricane Noel flight
• Pacific Testbed
– Air-sea fluxes and
atmospheric rivers
– Fishery surveillance
• Observing System
Simulation Experiments
First 7 Mission Concepts
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An operational UAS mission concept to monitor Arctic ice seals for the NMFS
using low altitude UAS platforms launched from a NOAA ship
An research UAS mission concept to study climate change issues such as
atmospheric composition and Arctic sea ice and ecosystems
A research UAS mission concept to study air-sea interactions in the boundary
layer of hurricanes using low altitude UAS platforms
A research/operational UAS mission concept to evaluate high altitude UAS
platforms and sensors for monitoring hurricane intensity and structure changes
A research UAS mission concept to evaluate low and high altitude platforms and
sensors to improve our understanding of atmospheric rivers of water vapor over
the Pacific ocean which impact rainfall and flooding predictions on the USA
West Coast
An operational UAS mission concept to evaluate low altitude platforms launched
from NOAA ships to monitoring of national marine monuments for NOS
An research UAS mission concept to evaluate UAS platforms to provide realtime information needed for improved understanding and prediction of fire
weather. This activity is being funded by Economic Stimulus Funding provided
to NIST.
GlobalHawk
Hawk UAS
Global
UAS
Two Global Hawk UAS platforms have been acquired by NASA
Dryden Flight Research Center, CA (AV-6 & AV-1).
• Fully autonomous
• Wingspan 116 ft
• 210 - 335 KTAS
• 1500 - 2000 lb payload, 10 kVA payload power
• Performance: Alt 65,000 ft, Range 11,000 nm, Endurance 31 hrs
• First flight later this month
• First science mission (GloPac) later this year
Zones are pressurized spaces
Zones are unpressurized
Dropsonde Development
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Form a collaborative
partnership between NOAA,
NCAR, NASA to build and
integrate an automated
dropsonde system on the
Global Hawk UAS
Rely on NCAR/EOL’s long
experience with dropsonde
development and launching for
new system
Use the new MIST sonde:
smaller and lighter than current
dropsondes
Target a 100-sonde/8 channel
system for optimal performance
on 30+ hr flights
Preliminary MIST
Sonde
Specifications
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Mass: 175 g
Length: 30.5 cm
Diameter: 4.7 cm
Fall speed: 11 m/s at
sea surface
Measures pressure,
temperature, humidity
@ 2 Hz rate
Measures Winds @ 4
Hz rate
Missions of Interest
• NASA Hurricane Genesis and Rapid
Intensification Processes (GRIP) Mission
– Fall 2010
• Atmospheric Rivers
– 2011-2012
– Eastern Pacific
Zhu & Newell (1998) concluded in a 3-year ECMWF model diagnostic study:
1) 95% of meridional water vapor flux occurs in narrow plumes in <10% of zonal circumference.
2) There are typically 3-5 of these narrow plumes within a hemisphere at any one moment.
3) They coined the term “atmospheric river” (AR) to reflect the narrow character of plumes.
Given the above: ARs are very important from a global water cycle perspective.
Observational studies by Ralph et al. (2004, 2005, 2006) extend model results:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Long, narrow plumes of IWV >2 cm measured by SSM/I satellites considered proxies for ARs.
These plumes are typically situated near the leading edge of polar cold fronts.
P-3 aircraft documented strong water vapor flux in a narrow (400 km-wide) AR (along AA’).
Airborne data also showed 75% of the vapor flux was below 2.5 km MSL.
Moist-neutral stratification <2.8 km MSL, conducive to orographic precip. boost & floods.
Atmos. river
400 km
2 Jan 02 am; SSM/I IWV (cm)
Global Hawk
Atmospheric River/Tropical Tap
Flight Plan
EDW
J
DINTY
I
K
F
H
A
E
G
D
B
C
IWV (cm)
Distance (DINTY-DINTY):
- ~7600 nmi or ~14,000 km
Assumed Speed:
- 335 knots or 172.4 m/s
Flight Duration:
- EDW-DINTY RT: ~4.5 hours
- DINTY-DINTY: ~22.7 hours
Sampling Legs
- A-B: 1460 km
- B-C: 1000 km
- C-D: 700 km
- D-E: 1000 km
- F-G: 1000 km
- H-I: 1000 km
- J-K: 1000 km
Dropsonde spacing: 100 km
75 total dropsondes
Global Hawk Flight plan (detailed):
Dates: ?
Number of flights: ?
Cruising Alt: ~18 km
Cruising speed : ~175 m/s
Max. duration/range: 30h/18900km
Actual duration/range:
-~4.5 h EDW-Dinty RT, plus
-~20.6 h flight (~12984 km)
16 Feb 04 pm; SSM/I IWV (cm)
P3 inset box
MRY
C
P-3 flight
track
D
EDW
B
Dinty
G
E
H
F
35 GH drops
J
I
L
GH dropsondes
K
35 GH drops
A
100 km
IWV (cm)
A-B: 1250 km
B-C: 250 km
C-D: 250 km
D-E: 250 km
E-F: 250 km
F-G:250 km
G-D: 250 km
D-E: 250 km
E-G: 355 km
G-H: 250 km
H-I: 250 km
I-F: 250 km
F-H: 335 km
H-J: 250 km
J-K: 250 km
J-I: 250 km
I-L: 560 km
complete
multi-box
5730 km
times 2
+
1022 km
+
422 km
+
80 km
Instrumentation
Dropsondes (70 total)
channels: 8
descent time: 30 min
resolution: 80 km (min >40 km)
Contact Information
NOAA UAS Web Site
http://UAS.noaa.gov
Gary Wick, Gary.A.Wick@noaa.gov
Robbie Hood
NOAA UAS Program Director
Robbie.Hood@noaa.gov
303-497-3008 (office) / 303-905-3411 (cell)
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Atmospheric Rivers
• What are Atmospheric
Rivers?
– Narrow plumes of enhanced
water vapor flux
– Responsible for 95% of the
meridional flux in less than
10% of the circumference
• Why we care
– The storms of greatest concern
along the west coast
– All 7 major floods of Russian
River since 1997 have been
fed by atmospheric rivers
– Responsible for as much as
50% of the water supply in the
Sierra Nevada
Atmospheric
river
White River in
Oregon,
7 November
2006
Photo courtesy
of Doug Jones