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Drones
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Weather Impacts on Uncrewed Aircraft
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Weather Impacts on Uncrewed Aircraft

A special issue of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X). This special issue belongs to the section "Drone Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 18 February 2025 | Viewed by 18291

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Kevin Adkins

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Aviation, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL 32114, USA
Interests: UAS applications; aircraft design & flight test; micrometeorology; advanced air mobility
Prof. Dr. Jamey Jacob

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Unmanned Systems Research Institute, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA
Interests: aerodynamics; UAV design & flight testing; vortex dynamics; flow control; bio-fluid flow; plasma physics; inflatable aerostructures
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Joachim Reuder

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Geophysical Institute & Bergen Offshore Wind Centre, University of Bergen, N-5007 Bergen, Norway
Interests: development and application of UAS for atmospheric measurements; boundary layer meteorology; turbulence; wind energy meteorology; renewable energy and energy transition; polar meteorology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) seeks to bring safe, accessible, affordable, and automated aerial services and transportation for cargo and passengers. The aircraft participating in this new air transportation system span from small multirotors to larger uncrewed aircraft (UA) that transport people. Most of these operations will take place between the surface and 1500 m above the ground, i.e., typically within the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), and span both urban and rural areas. Although this is a portion of the atmosphere that traditional manned aircraft have quickly passed through during ascent and descent, this is a new environment for sustained aviation operations and one that is characterized by highly variable meteorological conditions and high levels of atmospheric turbulence. Consequently, flight conditions can change dramatically across very short temporal and spatial scales. Exacerbating this challenging environment are the use of aircraft with lower mass, moment of inertia, thrust, and speed, thus making them extremely sensitive to their ambient environment. 

This Special Issue aims to bring together the considerations that must be given to UA design and flight operations due to the wide variety of anticipated weather conditions for AAM operations. We welcome submissions that consider the wide variety of weather impacts and considerations, including, but not limited to:

  • Aircraft design;
  • Aircraft flight test;
  • Sensor development and testing;
  • Weather forecasting;
  • Weather forecasting products;
  • Environmental characterization;
  • Mission planning;
  • Measurement platforms of opportunity.

Dr. Kevin Adkins
Prof. Dr. Jamey Jacob
Prof. Dr. Joachim Reuder
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • uncrewed aircraft
  • drone
  • atmospheric boundary layer
  • micrometeorology
  • advanced air mobility
  • atmospheric physics
  • UAS traffic management
  • hyperlocal forecasting
  • trajectory planning
  • drone sensors

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

34 pages, 20980 KiB  
Article
Go with the Flow: Estimating Wind Using Uncrewed Aircraft
by Marc D. Compere, Kevin A. Adkins and Avinash Muthu Krishnan
Drones 2023, 7(9), 564; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7090564 - 1 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3985
Abstract
This paper presents a fundamentally different approach to wind estimation using Uncrewed Aircraft (UA) than the vast majority of existing methods. This method uses no on-board flow sensor and does not attempt to estimate thrust or drag forces. Using only GPS and orientation [...] Read more.
This paper presents a fundamentally different approach to wind estimation using Uncrewed Aircraft (UA) than the vast majority of existing methods. This method uses no on-board flow sensor and does not attempt to estimate thrust or drag forces. Using only GPS and orientation sensors, the strategy estimates wind vectors in an Earth-fixed frame during turning maneuvers. The method presented here is called the Wind-Arc method. The philosophy behind this method has been seen in practice, but this paper presents an alternative derivation with resulting performance evaluations in simulations and flight tests. The simulations verify the method provides perfect performance under ideal conditions using simulated GPS, heading angle, and satisfied assumptions. When applied to experimental flight test data, the method works and follows both the airspeed and wind speed trends, but improvements can still be made. Wind triangles are displayed at each instant in time along the flight path that illustrate the graphical nature of the approach and solution. Future work will include wind gust estimation and a Quality of Estimate (QoE) metric to determine what conditions provide good wind speed estimates while preserving the method’s generality and simplicity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Weather Impacts on Uncrewed Aircraft)
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22 pages, 19025 KiB  
Article
Flow Structure around a Multicopter Drone: A Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis for Sensor Placement Considerations
by Mauro Ghirardelli, Stephan T. Kral, Nicolas Carlo Müller, Richard Hann, Etienne Cheynet and Joachim Reuder
Drones 2023, 7(7), 467; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7070467 - 13 Jul 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4985
Abstract
This study presents a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based approach to determine the optimal positioning for an atmospheric turbulence sensor on a rotary-wing uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) with X8 configuration. The vertical (zBF) and horizontal (xBF [...] Read more.
This study presents a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based approach to determine the optimal positioning for an atmospheric turbulence sensor on a rotary-wing uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) with X8 configuration. The vertical (zBF) and horizontal (xBF) distances of the sensor to the UAV center to reduce the effect of the propeller-induced flow are investigated by CFD simulations based on the k−ϵ turbulence model and the actuator disc theory. To ensure a realistic geometric design of the simulations, the tilt angles of a test UAV in flight were measured by flying the drone along a fixed pattern at different constant ground speeds. Based on those measurement results, a corresponding geometry domain was generated for the CFD simulations. Specific emphasis was given to the mesh construction followed by a sensitivity study on the mesh resolution to find a compromise between acceptable simulation accuracy and available computational resources. The final CFD simulations (twelve in total) were performed for four inflow conditions (2.5 m s−1, 5 m s−1, 7.5 m s−1 and 10 m s−1) and three payload configurations (15 kg, 20 kg and 25 kg) of the UAV. The results depend on the inflows and show that the most efficient way to reduce the influence of the propeller-induced flow is mounting the sensor upwind, pointing along the incoming flow direction at xBF varying between 0.46 and 1.66 D, and under the mean plane of the rotors at zBF between 0.01 and 0.7 D. Finally, results are then applied to the possible real-case scenario of a Foxtech D130 carrying a CSAT3B ultrasonic anemometer, that aims to sample wind with mean flows higher than 5 m s−1. The authors propose xBF=1.7 m and zBF=20 cm below the mean rotor plane as a feasible compromise between propeller-induced flow reduction and safety. These results will be used to improve the design of a novel drone-based atmospheric turbulence measurement system, which aims to combine accurate wind and turbulence measurements by a research-grade ultrasonic anemometer with the high mobility and flexibility of UAVs as sensor carriers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Weather Impacts on Uncrewed Aircraft)
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29 pages, 2585 KiB  
Article
Impact of Wind on eVTOL Operations and Implications for Vertiport Airside Traffic Flows: A Case Study of Hamburg and Munich
by Karolin Schweiger, Reinhard Schmitz and Franz Knabe
Drones 2023, 7(7), 464; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7070464 - 11 Jul 2023
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4694
Abstract
This study examines the impact of wind/gust speed conditions on airside traffic flows at vertiports in the context of on-demand urban air mobility based on the Vertidrome Airside Level of Service Framework. A wind-dependent operational concept introducing four wind speed categories with corresponding [...] Read more.
This study examines the impact of wind/gust speed conditions on airside traffic flows at vertiports in the context of on-demand urban air mobility based on the Vertidrome Airside Level of Service Framework. A wind-dependent operational concept introducing four wind speed categories with corresponding wind-dependent separation values is developed and applied in simulation. A decade (2011–2020) of historical METAR wind/gust speed reports are analyzed for a potential vertiport location at Hamburg and Munich airport, and a representative year of wind speed data is selected for each location as simulation input. Both locations experience performance degradation during the first quarter of the simulated year, which contains over 50% of the annual flight cancellations, and exceed wind-operating conditions, especially during midday and early afternoon hours. This study discusses the importance of wind-dependent coordination of flight schedules and analyzes the challenge of determining appropriate wind speed category thresholds. Lower thresholds result in an increased frequency of operationally unfavorable wind/gust conditions. Additional sensitivity analyses are performed to study the effects of wind-dependent separation deltas and wind-(in)dependent scheduling approaches. In conclusion, the presented approach enables planners and operators to make informed decisions about vertiport traffic flow characteristics and performance, vertiport location, and business cases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Weather Impacts on Uncrewed Aircraft)
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16 pages, 11307 KiB  
Article
Hyper-Local Weather Predictions with the Enhanced General Urban Area Microclimate Predictions Tool
by Kevin A. Adkins, William Becker, Sricharan Ayyalasomayajula, Steven Lavenstein, Kleoniki Vlachou, David Miller, Marc Compere, Avinash Muthu Krishnan and Nickolas Macchiarella
Drones 2023, 7(7), 428; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7070428 - 28 Jun 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2821
Abstract
This paper presents enhancements to, and the demonstration of, the General Urban area Microclimate Predictions tool (GUMP), which is designed to provide hyper-local weather predictions by combining machine-learning (ML) models and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. For the further development and demonstration of [...] Read more.
This paper presents enhancements to, and the demonstration of, the General Urban area Microclimate Predictions tool (GUMP), which is designed to provide hyper-local weather predictions by combining machine-learning (ML) models and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. For the further development and demonstration of GUMP, the Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) campus was used as a test environment. Local weather sensors provided data to train ML models, and CFD models of urban- and suburban-like areas of ERAU’s campus were created and iterated through with a wide assortment of inlet wind speed and direction combinations. ML weather sensor predictions were combined with best-fit CFD models from a database of CFD flow fields, providing flight operational areas with a fully expressed wind flow field. This field defined a risk map for uncrewed aircraft operators based on flight plans and individual flight performance metrics. The potential applications of GUMP are significant due to the immediate availability of weather predictions and its ability to easily extend to arbitrary urban and suburban locations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Weather Impacts on Uncrewed Aircraft)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Flow structure Around a Multicopter Drone: a Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis
Authors: Mauro Ghirardelli; Stephan T. Kral; Etienne Cheynet; Richard Hann; Nicolas C. Müller; Joachim Reuder.
Affiliation: University of Bergen, Norway; Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet, Trondheim, Norway;

Title: A Survey on Crowdsensing of Meteorological Data in Urban Environments for Aerial Vehicle Transportation
Authors: Dr. M. Ilhan Akbas; Rajagopal Sugumar:
Affiliation: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, United States

Title: Evaluating the Impact of Wind on Urban Air Mobility eVTOL Operations: Implications for Vertiport Airside Traffic Flows
Authors: Karolin Schweiger; Reinhard Schmitz; Franz Knabe
Affiliation: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Cologne, Germany

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