Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVs
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have benefited from a tremendous increase in popularity over the past decade, which has inspired their application toward many novel and unique use cases. One of them is the use of UAVs in meteorological research, in particular for wind measurement. Research in this f...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-03-01
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| Series: | Atmosphere |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/4/551 |
| _version_ | 1797436932426301440 |
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| author | Kilian Meier Richard Hann Jan Skaloud Arthur Garreau |
| author_facet | Kilian Meier Richard Hann Jan Skaloud Arthur Garreau |
| author_sort | Kilian Meier |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have benefited from a tremendous increase in popularity over the past decade, which has inspired their application toward many novel and unique use cases. One of them is the use of UAVs in meteorological research, in particular for wind measurement. Research in this field using quadcopter UAVs has shown promising results. However, most of the results in the literature suffer from three main drawbacks. First, experiments are performed as numerical simulations or in wind tunnels. Such results are limited in their validity in real-life conditions. Second, it is almost always assumed that the drone is stationary, which limits measurements spatially. Third, no attempts at estimating vertical wind are made. Overcoming these limitations offer an opportunity to gain significant value from using UAVs for meteorological measurements. We address these shortcomings by proposing a new dynamic model-based approach, that relies on the assumption that thrust can be measured or estimated, while drag can be related to air speed. Moreover, the proposed method is tested on empirical data gathered on a DJI Phantom 4 drone. During hovering, our method leads to precision and accuracy comparable to existing methods that use tilt to estimate the wind. At the same time, the method is able to estimate wind while the drone is moving. This paves the way for new uses of UAVs, such as the measurement of shear wind profiles, knowledge of which is relevant in Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) meteorology. Additionally, since a commercial off-the-shelf drone is used, the methodology can be replicated by others without any need for custom hardware development or modifications. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T11:09:43Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-095cce950788492c87fa8d01979ec3f2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2073-4433 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T11:09:43Z |
| publishDate | 2022-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Atmosphere |
| spelling | doaj.art-095cce950788492c87fa8d01979ec3f22023-12-01T00:46:29ZengMDPI AGAtmosphere2073-44332022-03-0113455110.3390/atmos13040551Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVsKilian Meier0Richard Hann1Jan Skaloud2Arthur Garreau3Geodetic Engineering Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Station 18, CH-1015 Lausanne, SwitzerlandCentre for Autonomous Marine Operations and System (AMOS), Department of Engineering Cybernetics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NO-7491 Trondheim, NorwayGeodetic Engineering Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Station 18, CH-1015 Lausanne, SwitzerlandDepartment of Arctic Technology, University Centre of Svalbard (UNIS), NO-9171 Longyearbyen, NorwayUnmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have benefited from a tremendous increase in popularity over the past decade, which has inspired their application toward many novel and unique use cases. One of them is the use of UAVs in meteorological research, in particular for wind measurement. Research in this field using quadcopter UAVs has shown promising results. However, most of the results in the literature suffer from three main drawbacks. First, experiments are performed as numerical simulations or in wind tunnels. Such results are limited in their validity in real-life conditions. Second, it is almost always assumed that the drone is stationary, which limits measurements spatially. Third, no attempts at estimating vertical wind are made. Overcoming these limitations offer an opportunity to gain significant value from using UAVs for meteorological measurements. We address these shortcomings by proposing a new dynamic model-based approach, that relies on the assumption that thrust can be measured or estimated, while drag can be related to air speed. Moreover, the proposed method is tested on empirical data gathered on a DJI Phantom 4 drone. During hovering, our method leads to precision and accuracy comparable to existing methods that use tilt to estimate the wind. At the same time, the method is able to estimate wind while the drone is moving. This paves the way for new uses of UAVs, such as the measurement of shear wind profiles, knowledge of which is relevant in Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) meteorology. Additionally, since a commercial off-the-shelf drone is used, the methodology can be replicated by others without any need for custom hardware development or modifications.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/4/551Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) meteorologywind estimationshear wind profileUAV motion model |
| spellingShingle | Kilian Meier Richard Hann Jan Skaloud Arthur Garreau Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVs Atmosphere Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) meteorology wind estimation shear wind profile UAV motion model |
| title | Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVs |
| title_full | Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVs |
| title_fullStr | Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVs |
| title_short | Wind Estimation with Multirotor UAVs |
| title_sort | wind estimation with multirotor uavs |
| topic | Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) meteorology wind estimation shear wind profile UAV motion model |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/4/551 |
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