The Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting (TAMDAR) sensor measures humidity, pressure, temperature, winds aloft, icing, and turbulence, along with the corresponding location, time, and altitude from built-in GPS. These observations are transmitted in real time to a ground-based network operations center via a global satellite network.

A miniaturized version of the TAMDAR unit was designed for unmanned aircraft systems or vehicles (UAS/UAVs). With minimal weight, size, and power consumption, this probe can be fixed to UAVs as small as the AAAI Arcturus and Aerostars.

TAMDAR-UAS Flight Test (TUFT) field experiment was designed to test the ability of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to capture data that would provide positive impact into a limited area model. Within this experiment were tests on various flight tracks and levels to also determine the potential for maximum sampling efficiency given the ability to predetermine a route of travel. Data was collected, and several data-denial experiments were conducted. These experiments include variations on assimilation methodology, as well as horizontal and vertical model coordinate structure, to extract the maximum value from a single-platform in-situ observing system. Results will be presented at the conference.

During 2011, AirDat and NCAR have been optimizing the operational suite of CONUS-Scale Advanced Research WRF (ARW) models known as the NCAR-AirDat RTFDDA-WRF and the NCAR-AirDat 3D- and 4DVAR-WRF. These systems employ various assimilation frameworks and techniques, and are tested here for both standard TAMDAR data, as well as the UAV observations.