Sensing Weather for Advanced Air Mobility

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is a concept for safe, sustainable, and accessible aviation for local and intraregional missions with the promise to change transportation and to bring aviation into people’s daily lives. To address a shortcoming of existing weather sensing systems, ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials) established the ASTM F38 standard to address the performance and interoperability requirements for weather data reports, analysis, and services for operations including uncrewed aircraft systems (UASs) and AAM end users. Within this standard, the Tier 2 level is unique in being the lowest performance tier that is able to measure the critical parameters for aviation: wind, ceiling, and visibility. To address the need for a commercially viable Tier 2 weather sensor suitable for AAM support, Intellisense has developed the Sensing Weather for Advanced Air Mobility (SWAAMI) system. This system will be the first commercial weather sensor specifically designed to meet all ASTM F3673-23 Tier 2 performance requirements and do so at a low cost that will promote widespread adoption and deployment and help enhance cost-effective, safe, and effective operational decision making. The SWAAMI system is based on a novel integration of existing breakthrough technologies. Specifically, Intellisense modified its existing Micro Weather Station (MWS®) product to include the latest in optical precipitation and present-weather sensing technologies to form the SWAAMI system, which is the first of its kind in a product category that will become essential to AAM operations. In the Phase I NASA effort, Intellisense not only fully realized the prototype system but also successfully demonstrated its effectiveness and accuracy against larger commercial references sensors in extended outdoor demonstrations. In Phase II Intellisense proposes to ruggedize and enhance the design in preparation for commercial producibility.