Operational Capability of Drone-Based Meteorological Profiling in an Urban Area

Abstract

During the Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Demonstration Campaign (UAS-DC), led by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), twice-daily meteorological profiling was conducted for 2 months at the Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba City (Japan), which is identified as a densely inhabited district. This campaign was instigated to assess the feasibility of obtaining continuous daily measurements for the long term (over a period of more than 1 month), to distribute the data in a format designated for numerical weather prediction, and to evaluate data quality compared to conventional meteorological data. Three types of uncrewed aircraft systems were utilized, that is, a meteorological medium-sized hexacopter and medium- and small-sized commercial drones with meteorological sensors attached. The maximum flight height was limited to 900 m above ground level owing to airspace regulations around the observation site. Compared with routine radiosonde data, the bias of air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed measurements was less than 0.3 K, 1.5%, and 0.6 m $s^{-1}$, respectively, thereby meeting WMO requirements. Moreover, data transfer to the WMO-prepared repository was completed within 30 min after measurement acquisition. Based on user experience, several aspects regarding the UAS-DC campaign were discussed from the perspective of sustainable operation and atmospheric boundary layer research.