Urban Weather Sensing Infrastructure Testbed

The TruWeather Solutions team is proposing to develop a suite of innovative services to increase the reliability, robustness, and usability of urban weather data. Phase I focused on the design of the Urban Weathernbsp;EXperimentnbsp;(UWEX), finding the best urban area with plans for flight tests and high commercial opportunities,nbsp; searching for sensing solutions and their optimal locations, assessing the potentialnbsp; impact of their observations on predictions and mission planning. The UWEX multi-sensor campaign that will be carried out in Phase II will include spinning lidars, x-band radar and anemometers. We focused this effort on low altitude, urban environments where a significant observation gap remains and that have specific complex micro-weather challenges to enable routine UAS operations.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In Phase II, we are proposing to deploy the sensors, validate their data and develop a set of services that will support decision-making tools for UAS operators and navigators. These services will be scalable across multiple urban domains worldwide.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Once the sensors are deployed and the data validated. This data will be unique and valuable dataset for robust model evaluation and validation. Besides, this data willnbsp;benbsp; thenbsp;basis of real-time and predictive wind and ceiling products. Moreover, these products will undergo testing by operators through real urban flight testing and third party testing to demonstrate to AAM stakeholders and clients the reliability and scalability of these solutions.nbsp; Phase II will also focus on how weather contributes to a UAS operation risk assessment for both strategic and tactical planning. Since the future weather data and predictions sent to users rely on accurate and reliable wind sensor, verifying the validity of the wind sensor input data will enable trust of the output data created by TruWeather Solutions and its partners.nbsp;