Drones and their uses
Little Things ~ Big Results
Drones are now being used in the domain of weather and climate: monitoring hurricanes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have started to use UAVs or drones in monitoring severe weather systems such as cyclones and hurricanes. One of the causes that these instruments are being used is that they cost less than actual satellite imagery.
One kind of drones that are being used is a "bird-like" drone, much more lighter than military drones that can be lifted and threw like debris around by Hurricane. That is the actual goal of the drone, to monitor the intensity and directions of winds.
For more information:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/10/07/ST2007100700997.html
Hurricane chasers
NASA is using a different kind of drones, bigger of size for the same mission which is to look at how storms are affected by the environments through which they are moving. These latter are called Global Hawk AV-1 and AV-6.
The sensors that they are using are paper towel roll-sized tube with a parachute and GPS to tell their exact position. The other sensors used are Doppler Radar and a new system called High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Radar Profiler (HIWRAP).
The difference between these drones and the one used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is these ones are deployed above the hurricanes or storms to collect the data.
For more information:
