Experimentation and Validation of UAS Mounted Wind Sensors for Microscale Wind Mapping*

UAS technologies are becoming more widely utilized in civil and commercial

fields and military applications. Amazon’s drone delivery service and Boeing’s eVTOL air

taxi are some examples of this. With small urban UAS applications becoming common,

infrastructure, such as urban wind gust modeling known as “wind mapping” is being devel-

oped. Safety and efficiency of UAS operations are strongly impacted by low-altitude wind,

such as gusts around buildings. Gusts can negatively affect pilot operations, reduce flight

time, and cause damage to the UAS system. For this project, a fleet of specialized UAS quad

rotors collected local wind data around buildings and urban environments to aid in creating

a “wind map” to model gust behavior. UAS systems equipped with ultrasonic anemometers

were experimentally validated through comparison flights near Oklahoma Mesonet towers

and mast mounted anemometers. Wind measurements were then collected around buildings

on the Oklahoma State University campus, specifically the Kerr-Drummond buildings, to

model wind gusts inside of a microscale urban environment to create a “wind map” model concept.

Through the validation process it was determined that the UAS mounted wind sensors could

accurately measure wind speed within 1 m/s of known accurate wind sensors. The experi-

mental wind map result from the Kerr-Drummond flights resulted in finding high turbulence

areas to avoid during urban UAS operations.