A Dropsonde Glider with Adaptive Trajectory Planning

Dropsondes are one of the primary atmospheric measurement tools available to researchers. Current dropsondes are deployed with a free fall parachute trajectory, allowing no flight path control and requiring the deployment aircraft to fly close to the target. Adding a guided range capability to the dropsonde will allow much greater mission flexibility and operation in hazardous environments such as volcanic plumes. Barron Associates, Inc. will accomplish this through a scaled down version of a glide-kit harness currently being developed for use with sonobuoys. In addition, a suite of trajectory generation algorithms will be developed to facilitate controlled flight through areas of interest, along with the guidance and control routines to track the desired trajectory. The solution will be compatible with all existing dispensing systems, including the P-3 and the Global Hawk, and will address airspace utilization, materials and manufacturing concerns and cost. The Phase I effort will include prototype manufacture and piloted flight tests.

NASA uses dropsondes for a variety of different research efforts including atmospheric measurements in hurricanes, atmospheric rivers and over remote areas such as the Arctic and Antarctic. The added capability of the guided, range capable dropsonde would allow greater flexibility for data collection with the current applications and would expand the potential missions to include data collection over volcanic plumes and other hazardous environments, which are not feasible with current technology. The glide-kit is designed to be compatible with P-3, Global Hawk and other dispensing methods, allowing commercial feasibility for all NASA dropsonde applications.

Dropsondes are used by a number of different agencies both in the US and internationally, including NOAA, the US Air Force and NCAR. The glide-kit harness and the trajectory planning, guidance and control software are immediately applicable to all commercial uses of a dropsonde which would benefit from a cross range, guided capability. The technology is being independently developed for sonobuoys, and has potential commercial applications for other devices that have a cylindrical form factor and a need for some guided range capability, including supply delivery and sensor placement, with potential customers in the DoD, law enforcement and other agencies.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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