Digital Commons Network^™

Observing Difficult And Dangerous Regions Of The Hurricane Environment: Successes, Lessons Learned And Future Challenges Using Uncrewed Systems And Other Advanced Emerging Technologies, Joseph J. Cione, Joshua B. Wadler, Jun A. Zhang, Annette T. Hollignshead, Nik Pawlenko

ISARRA 2026

Since 2009, NOAA has used an air-launched, small uncrewed aircraft system (sUAS) designed to sample the highly turbulent boundary layer environment of tropical cyclones (TCs). Since 2014, fifty four (54) sUAS have been successfully deployed including operations into seven (7) Major Hurricanes: Edouard (2014), Maria (2017), Michael (2018), Ian (2022), Helene (2024) Milton (2024) and Melissa (2025). Since that time, promising results from these early missions have been well-documented and appeared in multiple peer-review articles. Since 2018, NOAA has invested resources in three new sUAS platforms that have specifically been designed to operate within the low level, high wind region …

Using The Swuf-3d Uas Fleet To Determine Heat Flux Characteristics In An Alpine Valley, Francesca Lappin, Almut Alexa, Andrea Wiech, Norman Wildmann

ISARRA 2026

Advancements in uncrewed aerial system (UAS) development and meteorological sensor integration have created a valuable tool to observe turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). Deploying a fleet of UASs allows the flexibility to sample the spatiotemporal structure of turbulence; such observations are particularly useful in complex terrain where it is difficult to sample with classical approaches. During the TEAMx campaign, the DLR SWUF-3D fleet of UAS was operated in a remote Alpine valley. Each SWUF-3D UAS is outfitted with a rapid response temperature sensor and can determine the 3D wind field at high-resolution, and these measurements are calibrated in-field. …

The Swuf-3d Multicopter Fleet For Wind Energy Research, Norman Wildmann, Johannes Kistner, Francesca M. Lappin, Julia Menken

ISARRA 2026

The SWUF-3D fleet comprises 35 multicopter drones, optimized, calibrated, and validated for high-resolution three-dimensional measurements of wind, temperature, and humidity—enabling the capture of turbulent structures down to scales of a few meters. Coordinated fleet flights facilitate the measurement of spatial correlations, coherence, and advanced multi-point turbulence statistics. For the validation of wind turbine load and performance models, accurate inflow and wake characterization is essential but challenging with conventional in situ and remote sensing techniques. We present validation of the drone fleet’s measurements against a reference array of meteorological masts at the DLR research wind farm WiValdi. Lateral coherence and velocity …

Bridging The Gap Between Innovation And Adoption: Challenges In Validating Meteorological Drone Observations, Melanie Kobras, Byron Drew, Brad Guay

ISARRA 2026

Meteorological drone technology has matured rapidly in recent years, offering new capabilities for high-resolution atmospheric observations in environments that are difficult to access with conventional systems. At the same time, all weather forecasting relies on frequent and high-quality observations. Despite this, the path from technical capability to operational acceptance remains unclear. The lack of established evaluation processes and recognized third-party assessment frameworks creates significant barriers, leading to repeated testing efforts and a prolonged time to operational deployment. This is particularly challenging for smaller technology providers and ultimately slows the integration of valuable new observational data into forecasting.

To address this …

Samurai In The Arctic - Turbulent Flux Measurements Across The Marginal Ice Zone From R/V Kronprins Haakon, Frederike S. Möller, Stephan T. Kral, Alexander Seeling, Joachim Reuder

ISARRA 2026

The turbulent heat exchange across the marginal ice zone (MIZ) is characterized by substantial flux gradients between open water and solid ice. Near polynyas and leads, existing bulk flux approaches break down, leading to unreliable flux estimates. Direct turbulent flux measurements across the MIZ remain sparse; existing measurement approaches, such as eddy-covariance systems, are either static and logistically impractical (ice-deployed) or suffer from flow distortion (ship-borne). Neither approach can systematically sample fluxes across varying ice conditions within one campaign.

The SAMURAI-S system---a heavy-lifting octocopter carrying a sonic anemometer on a payload suspended \SI{20}{\m} below the rotor plane---has been validated against …

Toward A Data‑Driven Framework For Optimizing Atmospheric Sensor Placement On Multirotor Suas, Edgar E. Prada, Kevin A. Adkins, Bryan Watson, Christopher S. Cerqueira, Avinash Muthu Krishnan

ISARRA 2026

11th Conference of the International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely-piloted Aircraft, 24–28 August 2026 in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA

Toward a Data‑Driven Framework for Optimizing Atmospheric Sensor Placement on Multirotor sUAS

Edgar E. Prada^1*, Kevin A. Adkins², Bryan Watson¹, Christopher S. Cerqueira¹,

Avinash Muthu Krishnan³

¹ Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL, USA

² College of Aviation, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL, USA

³Aeronautical Science Department, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL, USA

   ^* Correspondence email: [email protected]

Multirotor small uncrewed aircraft systems …

Cfd Analysis Of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Measurements On Planetary Rotorcraft, Jackson Asiatico, Ralph Lorenz, Michael Kinzel

ISARRA 2026

The Dragonfly mission will deploy a rotorcraft lander equipped with the Dragonfly Geophysics and Meteorology Package (DraGMet) to explore Titan’s surface and atmosphere through measurements of wind velocity, pressure, temperature, and atmospheric conditions. However, the vehicle’s bluff body geometry presents a challenge common amongst UAS atmospheric measurements, as flow disturbances around the lander create directionally dependent sensor biases. This study employs high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to characterize measurement errors in DraGMet’s meteorological sensor suite. Simulations were conducted across multiple azimuthal wind angles, extracting velocity data at fixed sensor locations and computing wall shear stress distributions across the vehicle …

Coptersonde: Progress Toward Autonomous Boundary Layer Profiling Stations, Antonio Segales, Tyler Bell, Joshua Gebauer, Elizabeth Smith

ISARRA 2026

Accurate observations of the atmospheric boundary layer remain a major limitation in numerical weather prediction, especially at scales relevant to convective initiation, boundary layer evolution, and rapidly changing local environments. This presentation introduces the CopterSonde, a purpose-built weather-sensing UAS developed at the University of Oklahoma to collect thermodynamic and kinematic vertical profiles of the lower atmosphere. The talk will highlight how years of field-driven engineering, deployment, and refinement have matured the platform from an academic prototype into a reliable system for challenging boundary layer conditions, with recent deployment results demonstrating improved data quality, reliability, and operational readiness in strong winds, …

Atmospheric Science On Titan From The Dragonfly Rotorcraft, Ralph Lorenz

ISARRA 2026

NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft lander is under construction for launch in 2028 to Saturn's moon Titan.  The ~900kg vehicle takes advantage of Titan's dense nitrogen atmosphere and low gravity to effect mobility using 8 rotors. The vehicle will make meteorological measurements on the surface, as well as during the ~20 minute flights it will make every Titan day or two (thus, once or twice per month). Flights will reach several hundred meters altitude, profiling most or all of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL), depending on the time of day.  Additionally, measurements are made at Titan arrival, where the vehicle descends by …

Impact Of In-Situ Observations From Three Torus Cases On Model Analyses And Forecasts Of Severe Convection, Robert Szot, Adam Houston, Matthew Wilson

ISARRA 2026

The quality of forecasts of severe deep convection in high-resolution numerical weather prediction is dependent on the representativeness of the model initial conditions. This representativeness may be negatively impacted by limited observation availability and by the presence of mesoscale heterogeneities not detected by conventional observations assimilated into convection-allowing models. By assimilating storm-scale observations from the Targeted Observation by Radars and Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) of Supercells (TORUS) campaign into an ensemble styled after the Warn-on-Forecast System, this study aims to investigate if data from field work platforms can improve the quality of initial conditions in the ensemble, potentially leading to …

Field Evaluation Of Remote Identification Broadcast Performance: Discrepancies Between Manufacturer Specifications And Operational Results, Walaa Alqwider, Bouteina Driouche

ISARRA 2026

Remote Identification (RID) is a regulatory requirement for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) operating in the National Airspace System, and the data it provides serves as a foundational input for a range of future UAS operations and services. To date, the real-world performance of commercially available RID devices has not been thoroughly characterized under operational flight conditions. This study presents the results obtained from a series of RID field tests in which multiple commercial off-the-shelf RID broadcast modules were evaluated for positional accuracy, broadcast continuity, and reception reliability. Testing was conducted using both stationary and dynamic flight profiles at varying horizontal …

Turbulence Modeling Effects On Wall Shear Stress For A Dragonfly Rotor In Ground Effect, Michael Marques, Jackson Asiatico, Ralph Lorenz, Michael Kinzel

ISARRA 2026

11th Conference of the International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely-piloted Aircraft 25–28 August 2026 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, United States

Evaluation of Turbulence Modeling Effects on Ground Shear Stress and Tip Vortex Dynamics for the Dragonfly Rotor in Ground Effect

Michael Marques1, Jackson Asiatico1, Ralph Lorenz2, Michael Kinzel1

1Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL, 32114, USA
2Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA

∗Corresponding email: [email protected]

NASA Dragonfly rotorcraft is designed to perform leap-frog flights across dune fields of Titan, requiring low-altitude operations during takeoff, landing, and hover. This study examines the aerodynamic behavior of the …

No-Flow-Sensor Wind Estimation For Multirotor Uas Using Kalman Filtering, Avinash Muthu Krishnan, Marc Compere, Kevin Adkins, Patrick Currier, Eric Coyle, Joshua B. Wadler

ISARRA 2026

This work describes the design and testing of a wind estimator for multirotor uncrewed aircraft systems based on Kalman filtering and standard onboard navigation measurements. The method estimates wind from GNSS-derived velocity, vehicle attitude, and body specific force, without relying on a dedicated flow sensor. The work presents the filter equations and the reasoning behind the estimator structure.

A main result of the work is the establishment of a 2D Kalman filter baseline for horizontal wind estimation. That baseline was evaluated through maneuver-based simulation tests and sensor-noise studies, and provides a practical reference solution for the horizontal wind components. The …

Integrating Quasi-Operational Coptersonde Wxuas Operations Into The Oklahoma Mesonet, Tyler M. Bell, Chris Fiebrich, Cynthia Luttrell, Antonio Segales, Joshua Gebauer, Lydia Bunting

ISARRA 2026

The University of Oklahoma (OU) and the Oklahoma Mesonet have achieved a significant operational milestone: the initiation of quasi-operational weather-sensing UAS (WxUAS) flights at a Mesonet station. Since early 2026, OU teams have collected hourly WxUAS atmospheric profiles at the Washington, OK Mesonet site at least once per week for an 8-hour period, with data transmitted in real time to the National Weather Service via the National Mesonet Program. This effort represents a meaningful and replicable step toward the routine integration of UAS-based measurements into existing operational surface networks.

This presentation will cover: (1) key lessons learned from quasi-operational flights …

Results And Lessons Learned From The 2024 Scales Intercomparison Effort, Tyler M. Bell, Gustavo Britto Hupsel De Azevedo, Sean Bailey, Antonio Segales

ISARRA 2026

The International Society for Atmospheric Research using Remotely piloted Aircraft (ISARRA) organized a flight week as part of their 2024 annual meeting, which took place in Oklahoma, USA from September 8-13. Small-UAS Coordination for Atmospheric Low-Level Environmental Sampling (SCALES) had three primary research foci: (1) distributed profiling across northeast Oklahoma to examine the 3D Mesonet concept; (2) urban heat island observations in Tulsa; and (3) turbulence measurements for validating building-resolving large-eddy simulations. In addition to these research objectives, SCALES sought to address WMO UAS-DC objectives of determining the accuracy of current state-of-the-art WxUAS. This supplemental objective is crucial for integration …

Scrapbook Pages

Gordon McGinnis Papers

A scrapbook pages with a black background containing newspaper clippings regarding military school eligibility and rosters. Page 1 has two clippings. The first clipping is titled 'Cycle Produces Men Eligible For Officer's School' and lists names from Headquarters, Company A, and Company B of the 67th Battalion. The second clipping is titled 'Future Officers, Cadre Men Enroll In Area Classes' and is dated Wednesday, April 29, 1942, and includes additional eligible men from the 66th Battalion and the 67th Battalion. Page 2 has one newspaper clipping titled 'Buck Private's Prayer'.

Scrapbook Page

Gordon McGinnis Papers

A scrapbook page with a black background containing two portrait photographs , a newspaper clipping, and several military-related insignia and labels. The top-left clipping is titled 'PHONES PARENTS FROM CAMP CARSON, COLORADO' and discusses Gordon McGinnis. Next to it are two black and white portraits of Gordon Brown McGinnis wearing glasses, one in a service cap and one in a garrison cap. Below these is a long label reading 'GREETINGS ON MOTHERS DAY MAY 10, 1942' featuring a USO logo. The bottom of the page displays various insignia and station labels including Camp Carson, Colorado; The Ordnance Training Center, Aberdeen …

Scrapbook Pages

Gordon McGinnis Papers

Two scrapbook pages with a black background containing clippings and photographs. On page 1 the top two clippings feature numbered illustrations of Texas wildlife, including a jackrabbit, terrapin, armadillo, roadrunner, horned toad, and cottontail rabbit. The third clipping is a text block describing these animals as species that servicemen are likely to encounter at Texas military camps. The large bottom clipping is titled 'Camp Hood, Texas' with a handwritten addition of 'Aug 1943'. Page 2 contains a black-and-white photograph and two newspaper clippings. The photograph depicts a wide view of servicemen marching in formation across an open field. The upper-left …

Texas — You Can Have It

Gordon McGinnis Papers

Poem by Ronald Pollard titled, "Texas – You Can Have It."

Turbulent Flow Impacts Of An Urban Canopy Observed Using Uas, James Pinto, Gijs De Boer, Sean Bailey, Kevin Adkins, Adam Houston, Elizabeth Smith, Avinash Muthu Krishnan, Joshua Lave

ISARRA 2026

Observations collected during the ISARRA Small-UAS Coordination for Atmospheric Low-Level Environmental Sampling (SCALES) flight week campaign are used to evaluate the NSF NCAR FastEddy^© GPU LES model run at a building resolving resolution of 5 m grid spacing.  A set of simulations were conducted using mesoscale forcings derived from the HRRR for cases collected both prior to and during the microSCALES field campaign. Observations from several turbulence-sensing UAS flown to the north and south of downtown Tulsa, OK are compared with highly resolved wind and turbulence estimates obtained with FastEddy^©. The new virtual tower capability in FastEddy …

Radiosonde Return And Reusability Evaluation For Enhanced Rapid High Altitude Weather Observations, Laura Tra, Bodie Walker, Jamey Jacob

ISARRA 2026

Radiosondes attached to weather balloons are sent into the atmosphere to measure the variations of pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind speed and direction. Generally, radiosondes are not recovered after gathering data, resulting in a negative environmental impact caused by abandoning radiosondes and allowing them to degrade, an issue that is exacerbated by the need to conduct periodic launches with multiple radiosondes to investigate changing weather patterns. To address this environmental issue, this project investigates recoverability and reusability of radiosondes. By attaching a Graw radiosonde to a Meteoglider produced by Meteomatics, data can be collected on the descent as well as …

Phasm As A Novel Atmospheric And Air–Sea Interface Sensing Platform For Coastal Boundary Layer Assessment, Daniel J. Gassen, Jamey Jacob, Jason Bruck, Paige Stevens

ISARRA 2026

Understanding coupled processes at the sea–atmosphere interface remains a major challenge in coastal meteorology, particularly in regions influenced by land–sea breeze circulations and rapid convective initiation. Traditional atmospheric observations over coastal waters are spatially sparse and often fail to capture fine-scale thermodynamic variability associated with evaporation, transpiration-like moisture exchange, aerosol transport, and biologically mediated air–sea interactions. This presentation explores a novel extension of the Passive Health Assessment for Sea Mammals (PHASM) system toward atmospheric and environmental sensing applications using uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS).

Originally developed as a minimally invasive airborne sampling platform for marine mammal hormone assessment, PHASM integrates precision …

Cfd-Based Evaluation Of Temperature Sensor Placement For Wxuas, Eduardo Michel, Gustavo Britto Hupsel De Azevedo

ISARRA 2026

Weather-sensing Unmanned Aerial Systems (WxUAS) have been used as a complementary tool for addressing the low-altitude atmospheric data gap; however, limited standardization across systems may hinder measurement comparability and introduce inconsistencies in observations.

This study evaluates temperature sensor placement considerations for a WxUAS by examining how the system influence on the surrounding environment impacts measurement accuracy. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are used to model rotor-induced flow and electronics-related heating for a for a small quadcopter under idealized conditions.

Multiple simulation configurations are considered to assess how rotor wash, platform geometry, and different operational conditions influence potential sensor locations. Additionally, …

Lessons Learned From Supporting A Federally Funded Aam Project, Alana Dachtler

ISARRA 2026

InterMet Systems participated in a grant project supported by federal funds administered by the State of Michigan and a Michigan based non-profit. The goal of the project was to expand weather data access to airports in Michigan by using the CopterSonde 3. Activities supported by the grant were scheduled to take place June 2025 through July 2026. This presentation will discuss the grant application process, milestone achievements, and next steps.

Propellor Wake Decay And Crosswind Interactions, Kerrick Ray, Jamey D. Jacob

ISARRA 2026

This research explores the temporal wake decay of a propeller for small uncrewed vehicles focusing on the rate it takes for the perturbed air to return to ambient conditions, the extent that the far field wake reaches to better quantify rotary wake dissipation rates, and the effects that a crosswind has on these spatial propellor induced flow qualities. These preliminary results are intended to better optimize in situ measurements for multi-vehicle campaigns such as swarm flight applications to better understand minimum required spacing to not have the wake influence onboard sensors and flight path planning for the minimum time between …

How Does Assimilating Uas Observations From The Scales Field Campaign Impact Forecasts Of Heavy Rainfall From Hurricane Francine?, Matthew Wilson, James Pinto, Adam Houston, Gus B.H. De Azevedo, Elizabeth Smith, Tyler Bell

ISARRA 2026

The Small-UAS Coordination for Atmospheric Low-Level Environmental Sampling (SCALES) project collected coordinated UAS observations around much of northeastern Oklahoma from September 8-13 2024 as part of that year’s ISARRA conference and field week. Although the weather that week in Oklahoma was benign, Hurricane Francine made landfall well to the southeast in Louisiana on 11 September and brought heavy rainfall to much of the lower Mississippi Valley over the next two days. All UAS sampling sites from SCALES were located outside of Hurricane Francine’s circulation; however, they may have sampled features upstream of Hurricane Francine which could impact its evolution as …

Exploiting The Atmospheric Boundary Layer For Soaring Applications W/ Cfd Simulations Using Forecasts As Boundary Conditions, Brendon Cavainolo, Sweety Sarker, Michael P. Kinzel, John J. Bird, Jamie Dyer, Matthew Berk

ISARRA 2026

Estimation of local atmospheric flow is important to inform glider pilots (or autonomous controllers) of ideal soaring conditions. There are two categories of methods that assist with this: 1). Using sensor data and real-time on-board computing algorithms to predict local windfields mid-flight, or 2). Using a combination of weather forecasts, CFD simulations, and machine learning to enhance off-board prediction capability, either preflight or mid-flight. In this work we introduce WindSDK, a tool capable of unifying outputs from all of the off-board compute capabilities into one user-friendly interface. This allows real-time querying of different predictive models to enhance glider path-planning and …

Learning-Based Flow Prediction For Autonomous Soaring: From Physics-Informed To Graph Neural Networks, Sweety Sarker, Brendon Cavainolo, Michael P. Kinzel

ISARRA 2026

Real time estimation of local atmospheric flow can be useful for gliders to improve flight performance. Traditional methods for atmospheric state estimation rely on costly sensor arrays, computationally expensive CFD simulations, or estimations based on experience. All of these approaches can be successful, but present challenges. An emerging methodology from the Machine learning (ML) front involves Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs), which are a data efficient machine learning methods that reconstruct the flow field (velocity, pressure, and turbulence) from a combination of constraints from the governing equations combined with sensor data. Through combining physical governing equations with sparse measurements, the neural …

Scouthive: Portable Wxuas Swarm For Distributed Atmospheric Sensing, Matthew Cann

ISARRA 2026

ScoutHive is a portable, all-inclusive four-drone weather uncrewed aircraft system (WxUAS) swarm designed for rapid deployment and remote atmospheric sensing. Fully loaded, the complete system weighs 26 lb and is housed within a carry-on-sized Pelican case for transport to austere or hard-to-access locations. Each nano-UAS weighs approximately 250 g and carries dedicated pressure, temperature, and relative humidity sensors, while horizontal wind is estimated using a calibrated Kalman filter.

The Hive base station provides storage, charging, communications, and a custom graphical user interface that supports tailored mission planning, real-time monitoring, and autonomous swarm operations of up to ten drones. Four drones …

Pike National Forest

Gordon McGinnis Papers

Image of vehicle traveling on highway passing through Pike National Forest.