Integrating Tactical Weather Sensors with Mobile Devices and the AF Weather Enterprise

ABSTRACT:In Phase II Distributed Communication Systems (DCS) proposes to improve the operational abilities of first in warfighters to transmit real-time weather data for ingestion into the AFW enterprise and receive up-to-date weather products, both text based and graphical, from AF-WEBs in support of their mission from anywhere on earth. DCS plans to accomplish this by building off of the success of the Phase I demonstrator in automating the generation of a METAR report. Specifically during the Phase II DCS will accomplish the following items:-Automate the process of generating METAR and SPECI reports using a Kestrel and Android mobile device to the greatest extent possible.-Provide an intuitive, easy to use interface for adding human factors to a METAR or SPECI report.-Demonstrate a method of transmitting graphical weather products, such as a Doppler radar reflectivity image, over the previously impractical data link of an Iridium SBD modem.-Integrate the previously described technology with AF-WEBs while maintaining information security and information assurance.BENEFIT:The technology developed during the proposed Phase II effort has applications to state-of-the-art for low cost supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for remote areas outside of the range of traditional communication paths.