Routine measurements using sUAS and TBS during ICARUS

 
Poster PDF

Authors

Fan Mei — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Darielle Dexheimer — Sandia National Laboratories
John Hubbe — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Gijs de Boer — University of Colorado
Casey Michael Longbottom — Sandia National Laboratories
Peter Carroll — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Dale Lawrence — University of Colorado
Mark D. Ivey — Sandia National Laboratories
Beat Schmid — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Category

ARM infrastructure

Description

The Inaugural Campaigns for ARM Research using Unmanned Systems (ICARUS) had been launched in 2016 and then the effort has been continued in 2017. ICARUS centered on Oliktok Point, Alaska focuses on developing routine operations of small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) and Tethered Balloon Systems (TBS). The operation during ICARUS 2016 provided valuable guidance for the ICARUS 2017 deployment. During two intensive operation periods in 2017, a small DataHawk II UAS has been deployed to collect data for two weeks each in May and August. Coordinated with DataHawk flights, the TBS has been launched with meteorology sensors such as iMet and Tethersondes, therefore vertical profiles of the basic atmospheric state (temperature, humidity, and horizontal wind) were observed simultaneously by sUAS and TBS. In addition, an aerosol payload was launched with 2 TBS flights in April and 7 TBS flights in May, which include a condensation particle counter (CPC, TSI 3007) and two printed optical particle spectrometers (POPS, Handix TBS version). Measured aerosol properties include total particle number concentrations, particle size distribution, at different ambient temperature and relative humidity. Vertical profiles of atmospheric state and aerosol properties were discussed based on the coordinated flights. Monthly variation was assessed with additional TBS aerosol payload data from the August and October flights.