First application of the meteorological Mini-UAV 'M2AV'

Abstract

The limitations of manned airborne meteorological measurements led to a new unmanned system, the Meteorological Mini-UAV (M2AV), recently developed by the Institute of Aerospace Systems, Technical University of Braunschweig. The task was to develop, test and verify a meteorological sensor package as payload for an already available carrier aircraft, the UAV 'Carolo T200'. Thereby the limitations in size and mass had to be respected. The M2AV is capable of performing turbulence and wind vector measurements within the atmospheric boundary layer and permits very short measurement cycles as an economic supplement during meteorological campaigns. The article gives details on the technical items. Results from meteorological data sets measured by the M2AV are used for data quality assessment. In October 2005 the M2AV participated in the meteorological field experiment 'LAUNCH 2005' in Lindenberg near Berlin. The M2AV data were compared with lidar and sodar/RASS measurements. Furthermore, an in situ comparison of temperature, humidity and wind vector data with the helicopter-borne turbulence probe Helipod was analysed and gave information about the M2AV data quality.