Weather Scout: Configurable Sensing in Urban, Suburban, and Rural Environments

This STTR project combines multiple non-defense commercial solutions to solve a significant defense and commercial gap in the current remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) / unmanned aerial system (UAS) ecosystem: sub-regional weather understanding aloft in urban, suburban, and rural environments. With the Weather Scout project, Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc. (DHWA) and the University of North Dakota (UND) are leveraging a significant amount of prior research and development to provide the Department of the Air Force (DAF), other Department of Defense (DoD), other government (e.g., NASA, FAA), and commercial customers with a critical evaluation of multiple novel weather sensors onboard a UAS for detecting icing, turbulence, and visibility at standoff distance to support safer and more efficient RPA/UAS operations. In this Phase II project, we will focus on the testing/evaluation of these three specific sensors onboard a UAS capable of carrying them in flight. In a subsequent Phase II or Phase III, we would incorporate real-time telemetry and integrate the system with a mission planning / ground control system.