Scientist instrumentation payloads for meteorological and solar radiation measurements on remotely pilot aircrafts

Antonio Javier Mesa Fortun, INTA, Spain

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as drones, have been extensively used for many years for military and civil applications. In this experiment, a Meggitt BTT-3 Banshee drone has been used for scientific purposes. This drone is made mostly of Kevlar and glass-reinforced plastic and used a rear rotary engine. The flight was held at El Arenosillo, which has a large experience flying this and other types of drones. The success and stable conditions of the flight is, therefore, guaranteed.

The drone can be equipped with instrumentation in a cargo bay capable of carrying more than 10 kilograms of payload. The biggest problem to cope with is the strong acceleration during taking-off. It is also important to pay attention to the energy demand of the instrumentation installed on board. These constraints determine the selection of suitable instrumentation. In our case an array spectroradiometer, specifically a StellarNet Black CXR-50 has been chosen as the main instrument. This CCD spectrometer is installed oriented to the zenith and it measures global solar downward radiation in 2048 different wavelengths between 270 nm and 900 nm. This kind of instrument consists in a CCD sensor and a combination of mirrors diffraction grating and filters. All these pieces have been strongly fixed and reinforced to the structure of the instrument. In addition to this spectroradiometer, four broadband radiometers, covering the ultraviolet UVA and UVB bands, have been also installed on the plane. Thus, two UVA and two UVB sensors oriented upward and downward respectively are installed. Finally, two cameras, one upward and one downward, have been installed in order to provide information about sky condition along the fly.

On this work, a detailed description of the experiment and preliminary results are presented.