Micro Flyer Requirements for Urban Wind Field Observations

Real-time weather forecasting to improve the safety of low altitude aircraft operations for advanced air mobility, particularly within urban settings, is vital for the integration of real-time operations from autonomous systems, such as drones and urban air taxis. Solving this includes in part developing autonomous systems capable of conducting observations accurately and reliably and determining the number and frequency of required observations and the sensitivity of these observations in data sparse regions of the lower atmosphere. Miniature sensor systems such as micro-air vehicles and bio-inspired flying sensors, both insect and seed based, have the opportunity to revolutionize atmospheric measurements through distributed flying sensor swarms. While these have largely been studied in wind tunnels or benign environments, within the urban canopy exists a complex flow field of a highly transient and three-dimensional nature. In order to design systems that will be optimized for this environment, we must understand the interplay between the urban wind fields and various types of micro flyers utilized for urban observations. This will drive aerodynamic inspiration and design of the systems, such as maneuvering systems to control the swarm dispersal in the atmosphere.