Development and Flight Test of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for the Measurement of Horizontal and Slant PATH Refractive-INDEX Structure Coefficient

As High Energy Laser (HEL) system come down in Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) they are gaining traction for uses with the Department of Defense and telecommunication companies resulting in a renewed interest for better understanding the effects that the lower earth atmosphere can have on beam path propagation along vertical and slant propagation paths. A major hurtle in the development and troubleshooting of these new HEL systems is the lack of real time weather data and an estimation of the path refractive-index structure coefficient once the systems graduate from a horizontal path propagation to a vertical or horizontal propagation path. The lack of beam path data makes it difficult to diagnose if total system problems are an artifact of the current atmospheric conditions or an evolving issue with internal optical components or HEL systems. To aid in collecting refractive-index coefficient and atmospheric data EngeniusMicro has developed and tested a low cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with an optimized payload for measuring atmospheric conditions and estimating the refractive-index structure coefficient. This paper discusses the sensor development and flight test process used.