scholarly journals Wind Profiling in the Lower Atmosphere from Wind-Induced Perturbations to Multirotor UAS

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier González-Rocha ◽  
Stephan F. J. De Wekker ◽  
Shane D. Ross ◽  
Craig A. Woolsey

We present a model-based approach to estimate the vertical profile of horizontal wind velocity components using motion perturbations of a multirotor unmanned aircraft system (UAS) in both hovering and steady ascending flight. The state estimation framework employed for wind estimation was adapted to a set of closed-loop rigid body models identified for an off-the-shelf quadrotor. The quadrotor models used for wind estimation were characterized for hovering and steady ascending flight conditions ranging between 0 and 2 m/s. The closed-loop models were obtained using system identification algorithms to determine model structures and estimate model parameters. The wind measurement method was validated experimentally above the Virginia Tech Kentland Experimental Aircraft Systems Laboratory by comparing quadrotor and independent sensor measurements from a sonic anemometer and two SoDAR instruments. Comparison results demonstrated quadrotor wind estimation in close agreement with the independent wind velocity measurements. However, horizontal wind velocity profiles were difficult to validate using time-synchronized SoDAR measurements. Analysis of the noise intensity and signal-to-noise ratio of the SoDARs proved that close-proximity quadrotor operations can corrupt wind measurement from SoDARs, which has not previously been reported.

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1183-1191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross T. Palomaki ◽  
Nathan T. Rose ◽  
Michael van den Bossche ◽  
Thomas J. Sherman ◽  
Stephan F. J. De Wekker

AbstractUnmanned aerial vehicles are increasingly used to study atmospheric structure and dynamics. While much emphasis has been on the development of fixed-wing unmanned aircraft for atmospheric investigations, the use of multirotor aircraft is relatively unexplored, especially for capturing atmospheric winds. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the efficacy of estimating wind speed and direction with 1) a direct approach using a sonic anemometer mounted on top of a hexacopter and 2) an indirect approach using attitude data from a quadcopter. The data are collected by the multirotor aircraft hovering 10 m above ground adjacent to one or more sonic anemometers. Wind speed and direction show good agreement with sonic anemometer measurements in the initial experiments. Typical errors in wind speed and direction are smaller than 0.5 and 30°, respectively. Multirotor aircraft provide a promising alternative to traditional platforms for vertical profiling in the atmospheric boundary layer, especially in conditions where a tethered balloon system is typically deployed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 63-64 ◽  
pp. 519-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Hao Ge Ma ◽  
Zhi Wei Cai

By analysing the wind data observed by radiosonde during 2000-2002 in Wuhan, zonal and meridional wind velocity, wind shear and energy were discussed. A winter maximum and a summer minimum of the zonal wind velocity which pace up and down between the height of 10-15km was found. The weaker variation of the meridional wind reflects the seasonal variation of gravity wave activity in the lower atmosphere. The energy variation show a trend stronger in winter and spring then in other seasons. A winter maximum and a summer minimum in the troposphere and lower stratosphere was also found, which ranged in similar height range as wind velocity. As a result, a strong correlation between horizontal wind velocity and kinetic energy can be infered.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hironori Iwai ◽  
Shoken Ishii ◽  
Ryoko Oda ◽  
Kohei Mizutani ◽  
Shinya Sekizawa ◽  
...  

Abstract A coherent 2-μm differential absorption and wind lidar (Co2DiaWiL) has been built with a high-power Q-switched Tm,Hm:YLF laser to measure CO2 concentration and radial wind speed. The performance of the Co2DiaWiL is described and analyzed, with a view to demonstrating system capabilities for remote measurements of wind velocities in the atmospheric boundary layer and free troposphere. Bias in the velocity measurements was estimated at −0.0069 m s−1 using measurements from a stationary hard target. The Co2DiaWiL achieved a velocity precision of 0.12 m s−1, derived from the magnitude of random error in radial wind velocity measurements. These measurements were made for ranges out to 20–25 km by using a horizontally fixed beam mode for average times of 1 min. Quantitative intercomparisons of 1-min averages between the Co2DiaWiL and a sonic anemometer revealed a correlation coefficient of 0.99. This study demonstrated measurements of horizontal wind profiles, by making radial wind velocity measurements with the Co2DiaWiL using conical scanning. Profile differences at higher levels could be attributed to probable large horizontal separations of the radiosondes and the low signal-to-noise ratio of the Co2DiaWiL. A pseudo-dual-Doppler technique was developed to retrieve horizontal wind components with a single-Doppler lidar and a steering mirror. Intercomparisons of the 1-min-averaged u and υ components from the pseudo-dual-Doppler lidar measurements with those from the sonic anemometer revealed correlation coefficients of 0.84 and 0.83, respectively.


2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 1451-1466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Siebert ◽  
Katrin Lehmann ◽  
Manfred Wendisch

Abstract Tethered balloon–borne measurements with a resolution in the order of 10 cm in a cloudy boundary layer are presented. Two examples sampled under different conditions concerning the clouds' stage of life are discussed. The hypothesis tested here is that basic ideas of classical turbulence theory in boundary layer clouds are valid even to the decimeter scale. Power spectral densities S( f ) of air temperature, liquid water content, and wind velocity components show an inertial subrange behavior down to ≈20 cm. The mean energy dissipation rates are ∼10−3 m2 s−3 for both datasets. Estimated Taylor Reynolds numbers (Reλ) are ∼104, which indicates the turbulence is fully developed. The ratios between longitudinal and transversal S( f ) converge to a value close to 4/3, which is predicted by classical turbulence theory for local isotropic conditions. Probability density functions (PDFs) of wind velocity increments Δu are derived. The PDFs show significant deviations from a Gaussian distribution with longer tails typical for an intermittent flow. Local energy dissipation rates ɛτ are derived from subsequences with a duration of τ = 1 s. With a mean horizontal wind velocity of 8 m s−1, τ corresponds to a spatial scale of 8 m. The PDFs of ɛτ can be well approximated with a lognormal distribution that agrees with classical theory. Maximum values of ɛτ ≈ 10−1 m2 s−3 are found in the analyzed clouds. The consequences of this wide range of ɛτ values for particle–turbulence interaction are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi Ishii ◽  
Yoshihiro Tomikawa ◽  
Masahiro Okuda ◽  
Hidehiko Suzuki

Abstract Imaging observations of OH airglow were conducted at Meiji University, Japan (IN, mE), from May 2018 to December 2019. Mountainous areas, including Mt. Fuji, are located to the west of the imager, and westerly winds are dominant in the lower atmosphere throughout the year. Mountain waves (MWs) are generated on the leeward sides of mountains and occasionally propagate to the upper atmosphere. However, during the observation period (about 1 year and 8 months), only four possible MW events were identified. Based on previous reports, this incidence is considerably lower than expected. There are two possible reasons for the low incidence of MW events: (1) The frequency of MW excitation is small in the lower layers of the atmosphere, and/or (2) MWs do not propagate easily to the upper mesosphere due to background wind conditions. This study verified the likelihood of the former case. Under over-mountain airflow conditions, wavy clouds are often generated on the leeward side. Since over-mountain airflow is essential for the excitation of MWs, the frequency of wavy clouds in the lower atmosphere can be regarded as a measure of the occurrence of MWs. The frequency and spatial distribution of MWs around Japan were investigated by detecting the wavy clouds from color images taken by the Himawari-8 geostationary meteorological satellite (GSM-8) for one year in 2018. The wavy clouds were detected on more than 70 days a year around the Tohoku region, but just 20 days a year around Mt. Fuji. This suggests that few MWs are generated around Mt. Fuji. The differences between these two regions were examined focusing on the relationship between the local topography and dominant horizontal wind fields in the lower atmosphere. Specifically, the findings showed that the angle between the dominant horizontal wind direction and the orientation of the mountain ridge is a good proxy of the occurrence of wavy clouds, i.e., excitation of MWs in mountainous areas. We have also applied this proxy to topography in other areas of the world to investigate areas where MWs would be occurring frequently. Finally, we discuss the likelihood of "MW hotspots" at various spatial scales in the world.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (10) ◽  
pp. 1731-1743 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. M. Huang ◽  
S. D. Zhang ◽  
F. Yi ◽  
K. M. Huang ◽  
Y. H. Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract. Using a nonlinear, 2-D time-dependent numerical model, we simulate the propagation of gravity waves (GWs) in a time-varying tide. Our simulations show that when a GW packet propagates in a time-varying tidal-wind environment, not only its intrinsic frequency but also its ground-based frequency would change significantly. The tidal horizontal-wind acceleration dominates the GW frequency variation. Positive (negative) accelerations induce frequency increases (decreases) with time. More interestingly, tidal-wind acceleration near the critical layers always causes the GW frequency to increase, which may partially explain the observations that high-frequency GW components are more dominant in the middle and upper atmosphere than in the lower atmosphere. The combination of the increased ground-based frequency of propagating GWs in a time-varying tidal-wind field and the transient nature of the critical layer induced by a time-varying tidal zonal wind creates favorable conditions for GWs to penetrate their originally expected critical layers. Consequently, GWs have an impact on the background atmosphere at much higher altitudes than expected, which indicates that the dynamical effects of tidal–GW interactions are more complicated than usually taken into account by GW parameterizations in global models.


2018 ◽  
Vol 612 ◽  
pp. A70 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Olivares ◽  
E. Moraux ◽  
L. M. Sarro ◽  
H. Bouy ◽  
A. Berihuete ◽  
...  

Context. Membership analyses of the DANCe and Tycho + DANCe data sets provide the largest and least contaminated sample of Pleiades candidate members to date. Aims. We aim at reassessing the different proposals for the number surface density of the Pleiades in the light of the new and most complete list of candidate members, and inferring the parameters of the most adequate model. Methods. We compute the Bayesian evidence and Bayes Factors for variations of the classical radial models. These include elliptical symmetry, and luminosity segregation. As a by-product of the model comparison, we obtain posterior distributions for each set of model parameters. Results. We find that the model comparison results depend on the spatial extent of the region used for the analysis. For a circle of 11.5 parsecs around the cluster centre (the most homogeneous and complete region), we find no compelling reason to abandon King’s model, although the Generalised King model introduced here has slightly better fitting properties. Furthermore, we find strong evidence against radially symmetric models when compared to the elliptic extensions. Finally, we find that including mass segregation in the form of luminosity segregation in the J band is strongly supported in all our models. Conclusions. We have put the question of the projected spatial distribution of the Pleiades cluster on a solid probabilistic framework, and inferred its properties using the most exhaustive and least contaminated list of Pleiades candidate members available to date. Our results suggest however that this sample may still lack about 20% of the expected number of cluster members. Therefore, this study should be revised when the completeness and homogeneity of the data can be extended beyond the 11.5 parsecs limit. Such a study will allow for more precise determination of the Pleiades spatial distribution, its tidal radius, ellipticity, number of objects and total mass.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1084 ◽  
pp. 636-641
Author(s):  
Valeriy F. Dyadik ◽  
Nikolay S. Krinitsyn ◽  
Vyacheslav A. Rudnev

The article is devoted to the adaptation of the controller parameters during its operation as a part of a control loop. The possibility to identify the parameters of the controlled plant model in the closed control loop has been proved by a computer simulation. The described active identification method is based on the response processing of the closed loop control system to standard actions. The developed algorithm has been applied to determine the model parameters of the flaming fluorination reactor used for the production of uranium hexafluoride. Designed identification method improves the quality of the product and the efficiency of the entire production.


1983 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 390-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Mel Kelly ◽  
John T. Findlay ◽  
Harold R. Compton

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Hardian Susanto Herho ◽  
Dasapta Erwin Irawan

Sonic anemometer observation was performed on 29 - 30 September 2014 in Ledeng, Bandung to see diurnal variations of Turbulence Kinetic Energy (TKE) that occurred in this area. The measured sonic anemometer was the wind velocity components u, v, and w. From the observation result, it can be seen that the diurnal variation that happened was quite significant. The maximum TKE occurs during the daytime when atmospheric conditions tend to be unstable. TKE values were small at night when atmospheric conditions are more stable than during the daytime.


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