The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded Black Swift Technologies (BST) a contract to develop an air-deployed UAS to perform lower boundary layer observations in difficult atmospheric conditions that are commonly encountered in convective storms such as hurricanes and tropical cyclones.

Known as the S0 Air-Deployed UAS, the proposed vehicle would be tube-launched from an aircraft such as NOAA’s Lockheed P3 Orion.

“With the destructive force demonstrated by hurricanes in 2018 (Florence and Michael in particular), hurricane forecasting remains a priority for scientists researching and striving to predict the paths and intensities of these storms,” explains Jack Elston, Ph.D., CEO of Black Swift Technologies.

“Our solution leverages technology and communication protocols NOAA has demonstrated effective, while our simplified design keeps the cost of the aircraft to a minimum, ensuring that multiple vehicles can be deployed for each storm, dramatically increasing the amount and accuracy of the data captured.”

The S0 drone’s design is meant to mimic the operations of radio dropsondes, which NOAA already uses in these environments. The radio dropsondes reduce the workload of the operators, and keep with the current overall CONOPS.

BST’s goal is to provide a “cost-effective, air-launched UAS designed to augment pressure, temperature, humidity and sea surface temperature measurements, with 3D wind data.” The UAS is designed to provide intelligent and autonomous extended sampling—an hour-plus of targeted observations—where the aircraft can make its own navigation decisions based on the atmospheric sensor data.

An important factor regarding this strategy is BST’s ability to use the Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) for long-range backhaul of the science data, which guarantees transmission at the current operational ranges for the dropsondes. By using the AVAPS system, no communications need be sent to the UAS after release without the addition of a separate command and control link.

To capture important and relevant data, the vehicles are intended to be deployed close to the sea-surface and eyewall of the storm. BST notes that it designed custom avionics, which allow the UAS to fly autonomously in a turbulent environment while integrating crucial components, including those needed for 3D wind sensing, along with interfaces to the RD-41 sonde and radio.

The UAS will not be recoverable, so the collected data will have to be relayed in its entirety during the flight.