Developing, Testing and Transitioning AI Drones and Microdropsondes to Routinely Sample the Hurricane Boundary Layer

Since 2009, NOAA has used an air-launched, small uncrewed aircraft system (sUAS) designed to sample the highly turbulent boundary layer environment of tropical cyclones (TCs). Since 2014, twelve (12) sUAS have been successfully deployed into four (4) Major Hurricanes including Edouard (2014), Maria (2017), Michael (2018) and Ian (2022). Since that time, promising results from these early missions have been well-documented and appeared in multiple peer-review articles. Since 2018, NOAA has invested resources in two new sUAS platforms that have specifically been designed to operate within the low level, high wind region of hurricanes. The platforms currently in testing include Black Swift Technologies’ S0 and Area-I’s Altius 600. In 2024, both AI-driven aircraft are expected to collect valuable TC oceanic and atmospheric boundary layer observations beyond visual line of sight. In addition, NOAA has invested resources to develop the next generation dropsonde system. This promising platform known as the Streamsonde is extremely lightweight (15g), has a pseudo swarm capability (50 can be deployed at once) and can measure sea surface temperature. To date, Streamsondes have successfully been deployed in Nigel (2023) and in Category 5 Beryl (2024). Each of these new technologies has the potential to significantly improve NOAA’s existing observing capabilities within the harshest conditions of the storm. Going forward, the expectation is that the Streamsonde platform and one or more of the small uncrewed aircraft systems currently in use will be in position to conduct routine operations in direct support of NOAA’s hurricane surveillance and monitoring requirements. It is believed that these transformative observing technologies will successfully leverage NOAA’s existing TC sampling capabilities and advance the Agency’s ability to better monitor and more accurately predict the intensity of these dangerous, often life-threatening storms. An overview of these NOAA systems along with recent results will be presented.