10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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Development of the Scientific Payload for UAS Observation
FAN MEI, Jason Tomlinson, Albert Mendoza, Matt Newburn, Lexie Goldberger, Peter Carroll, Mikhail Pekour, Beat Schmid, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Abstract Number: 28 Working Group: Low-Cost and Portable Sensors
Abstract The aerosol measurements provided by various platforms are essential for contributing scientifically significant datasets to improve scientific understanding of earth system. With rapid growth in the variety of unmanned aerial system (UAS) platform and applications, the opportunity for UAS to provide high-quality atmospheric measurements continues to expand. However, limited aerosol UAS instruments are available, due to the weight, size and power constrains in UAS. The information about miniaturized instrument performance, characterization, and especially the compatibility with their sibling version used in aircraft are very rare. The ArcticShark owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has the capability to measure a wide range of radiative, aerosol and cloud properties using a variable instrument payload weighing up to 46 kg. This work focuses on development of scientific payload in Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Aerial Facility (AAF). Several scientific payloads were tested based on the mission request. Aircraft-Integrated Meteorological Measurement System (AIMMS-30, Aven Tech.) is included in all the payload to provide the atmospheric state parameters and the aircraft condition. The aerosol payload includes printed optical particle spectrometers (POPS, Handix), and Aerosol Counting, Composition, Extinction and Sizing System (ACCESS, Brechtel). The operation of UAS version instruments compared with manned aircraft version were performed. In addition, the first UAS research flights data will be discussed.