Safe airspace and operations depend on accurate weather data to make critical decisions, plan fleet asset taskings, schedule cargo or people movements, and meet client expectations. More reliance on automation means there are less nodes in the workflow where humans can identify anomalies in data.
ResilienX is proposing to develop a Weather Sensor and Data Monitor (WSDM) service that we will integrate into our commercial In-time System-wide Safety Assurance (ISSA) platform; FRAIHMWORKTM (Fault Recovery and Isolation, Health Monitoring frameWORK). The goal of the WSDM is to detect when a weather source is not providing valid data. Weather sources may be IoT sensors, cameras, crowd sourced data, radar data, or even national, academia and private sector weather feeds. We will focus this effort on low altitude, urban environments that have specific complex micro-weather challenges and enable the accelerated deployment of an initial urban wind model capability.
We will monitor and enhance these weather sources by creating a micro-weather model for the urban environment which considers the structure (i.e. building and terrain) using Computational Fluid Dynamics as well as meteorology at low altitude. Since the weather data and forecasts are based off the input data to this model, verifying the validity of the input data will enable trust of the output.
Our vision is to enhance our ISSA platform with an advanced low altitude urban weather model capable of detecting and predicting “hot spots” that drones should stay away from. This initial model will accelerate commercialization of an important data set to identify hazard areas and keep airframes and people safe as we test, demonstrate, and deploy initial UAS and UAM operations in urban environments. We will also provide the capability to verify inputs to this model and identify misbehaving sensors before they have the chance to put bad data in and potentially affect the model.
This initiative enables NASA applications that depend on highly reliable and persistent non-government space, atmospheric and terrestrial measurements and predictions:
UAS and UAM is a “blue sky” mission area to demonstrate how weather systems and weather monitoring, especially in urban areas, can reduce the impact of anomalous events to mission critical operations.
Our applications for this technology extend to FAA and commercial endeavors of the same mission areas that NASA is working in, namely:
We are also looking at how cities can use urban micro weather data as part of Smart City initiatives by deploying IoT weather sensors.