Sbir phase II: high resolution environmental sensing using nanodrones

Greensight Inc. received a $940,743 cooperative agreement award from the National Science Foundation under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program to develop environmental sensing capabilities using drone swarm technology. The two-year project aims to enable improved severe weather prediction through collection of high-resolution atmospheric data within the boundary layer using a scalable system of synchronized unmanned aircraft. Greensight will leverage lightweight design, proprietary optimization techniques, automation, and remote operation to deploy a swarm capable of globally gathering spatial and temporal data at lower cost. The funding supports research and development of sensing payloads, autonomous coordination software, and data analytics to advance scientific understanding of atmospheric dynamics with applications in climate modeling and emergency response.

Abstract

The broader/commercial impact of this small business innovation research (sbir) phase i project is enabling enhanced prediction of severe weather formation to a timing resolution of hours instead of days. Improved weather predictions have a significant impact on people?s lives, allowing for better planning, proactive evacuations, and reducing deaths, injuries and property damage, especially in vulnerable populations. With climatologists predicting dramatic increases in damaging and dangerous severe weather over the next decades, accurate prediction of severe weather is even more critical. This project will launch a robotics-as-a-service business around the technology which can rapidly reach sustainability, generating economic impacts while providing significant environmental, scientific, and societal benefits. As the technology matures and becomes more widespread, entirely novel analysis and predictive models will be developed around the data being produced, unlocking even higher value economic insights for insurance, energy, financial, and transportation industries. The part of the atmosphere from the ground up to about 3,000 feet is called the atmospheric boundary layer. This area is difficult to monitor but has a huge impact on gas, heat, and energy exchange between the earth and the atmosphere. This project enables better monitoring and understanding of this area, unlocking scientific, logistical, and policy advancements that will drive new innovations in climate, environmental, and weather science with high impact on humanity. The proposed technology enables gathering high spatial and temporal resolution atmospheric data with a swarm of synchronized sampling aircrafts. The swarm system will use lightweight design approaches and proprietary optimization techniques for portability, swarm capability, flight endurance, and low cost. Using automation and robotics, including remote operational support, this project will enable data that can potentially be deployed globally to be gathered in a scalable and low-cost manner. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.