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Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs

As part of an NERC-funded project investigating the southern methane anomaly, a team drawn from the Universities of Bristol, Birmingham and Royal Holloway flew small unmanned multirotors from Ascension Island for the purposes of atmospheric sampling. The objective of these flights was to collect air...

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Autores principales: Greatwood, Colin, Richardson, Thomas S., Freer, Jim, Thomas, Rick M., MacKenzie, A. Rob, Brownlow, Rebecca, Lowry, David, Fisher, Rebecca E., Nisbet, Euan G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5490695/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28545231
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s17061189
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author Greatwood, Colin
Richardson, Thomas S.
Freer, Jim
Thomas, Rick M.
MacKenzie, A. Rob
Brownlow, Rebecca
Lowry, David
Fisher, Rebecca E.
Nisbet, Euan G.
author_facet Greatwood, Colin
Richardson, Thomas S.
Freer, Jim
Thomas, Rick M.
MacKenzie, A. Rob
Brownlow, Rebecca
Lowry, David
Fisher, Rebecca E.
Nisbet, Euan G.
author_sort Greatwood, Colin
collection PubMed
description As part of an NERC-funded project investigating the southern methane anomaly, a team drawn from the Universities of Bristol, Birmingham and Royal Holloway flew small unmanned multirotors from Ascension Island for the purposes of atmospheric sampling. The objective of these flights was to collect air samples from below, within and above a persistent atmospheric feature, the Trade Wind Inversion, in order to characterise methane concentrations and their isotopic composition. These parameters allow the methane in the different air masses to be tied to different source locations, which can be further analysed using back trajectory atmospheric computer modelling. This paper describes the campaigns as a whole including the design of the bespoke eight rotor aircraft and the operational requirements that were needed in order to collect targeted multiple air samples up to 2.5 km above the ground level in under 20 min of flight time. Key features of the system described include real-time feedback of temperature and humidity, as well as system health data. This enabled detailed targeting of the air sampling design to be realised and planned during the flight mission on the downward leg, a capability that is invaluable in the presence of uncertainty in the pre-flight meteorological data. Environmental considerations are also outlined together with the flight plans that were created in order to rapidly fly vertical transects of the atmosphere whilst encountering changing wind conditions. Two sampling campaigns were carried out in September 2014 and July 2015 with over one hundred high altitude sampling missions. Lessons learned are given throughout, including those associated with operating in the testing environment encountered on Ascension Island.
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spelling pubmed-54906952017-07-03 Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs Greatwood, Colin Richardson, Thomas S. Freer, Jim Thomas, Rick M. MacKenzie, A. Rob Brownlow, Rebecca Lowry, David Fisher, Rebecca E. Nisbet, Euan G. Sensors (Basel) Article As part of an NERC-funded project investigating the southern methane anomaly, a team drawn from the Universities of Bristol, Birmingham and Royal Holloway flew small unmanned multirotors from Ascension Island for the purposes of atmospheric sampling. The objective of these flights was to collect air samples from below, within and above a persistent atmospheric feature, the Trade Wind Inversion, in order to characterise methane concentrations and their isotopic composition. These parameters allow the methane in the different air masses to be tied to different source locations, which can be further analysed using back trajectory atmospheric computer modelling. This paper describes the campaigns as a whole including the design of the bespoke eight rotor aircraft and the operational requirements that were needed in order to collect targeted multiple air samples up to 2.5 km above the ground level in under 20 min of flight time. Key features of the system described include real-time feedback of temperature and humidity, as well as system health data. This enabled detailed targeting of the air sampling design to be realised and planned during the flight mission on the downward leg, a capability that is invaluable in the presence of uncertainty in the pre-flight meteorological data. Environmental considerations are also outlined together with the flight plans that were created in order to rapidly fly vertical transects of the atmosphere whilst encountering changing wind conditions. Two sampling campaigns were carried out in September 2014 and July 2015 with over one hundred high altitude sampling missions. Lessons learned are given throughout, including those associated with operating in the testing environment encountered on Ascension Island. MDPI 2017-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC5490695/ /pubmed/28545231 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s17061189 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Greatwood, Colin
Richardson, Thomas S.
Freer, Jim
Thomas, Rick M.
MacKenzie, A. Rob
Brownlow, Rebecca
Lowry, David
Fisher, Rebecca E.
Nisbet, Euan G.
Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs
title Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs
title_full Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs
title_fullStr Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs
title_full_unstemmed Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs
title_short Atmospheric Sampling on Ascension Island Using Multirotor UAVs
title_sort atmospheric sampling on ascension island using multirotor uavs
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5490695/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28545231
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s17061189
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