Windborne systems (windborne, or collectively, we or our'') designs, manufactures, and operates an artificial intelligence-enabled global sounding balloon (GSB) that drastically improves upon legacy…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded a $500,000 Cooperative Agreement under the Weather and Air Quality Research program (CFDA 11.459) to Windborne Systems Inc., a small business based in Palo Alto, California. The funding supports the development of four key capabilities for Windborne's Global Sounding Balloon (GSB) platform:

1. A dropsonde capable of measuring temperature, relative humidity, pressure, and wind speed/direction that can be deployed from the GSB.
2. Single-link radio communication between the dropsondes and GSBs.
3. A meshed radio network to enable data relay from the GSBs to ground stations without satellite dependence.
4. The ability for the GSB to carry and individually deploy up to 10 dropsondes.

This 18-month project aims to advance Windborne's AI-enabled weather sensing balloon technology, providing NOAA with enhanced atmospheric data collection capabilities, including the ability to conduct targeted observations of extreme weather events. The award date is September 1, 2024, with a targeted completion date of August 31, 2025.

Windborne systems (windborne, or collectively, we or our'') designs, manufactures, and operates an artificial intelligence-enabled global sounding balloon (GSB) that drastically improves upon legacy weather balloons in terms of performance, endurance, sustainability, and cost. A GSB is a longduration sensor-carrying balloon that can maintain altitude or continually transition between any altitude from sea level to 20 KM (~65,000 FT). Unlike traditional weather balloons, which operate for a maximum of a few hours during a single ascent or a single descent, a GSB constantly collects and transmits real-time weather data throughout weeks-long flights, reaching event the most data-sparse and data-absent regions on earth. Although the windborne GSB takes repeated atmospheric soundings, there are many instances where additional data in a concentrated area would be beneficial, such as tropical cyclones and other extreme weather phenomena. Bearing this in mind, windborne is developing the ability for gsbs to remotely deploy as many as 10 lightweight dropsondes while in flight. Windborne dropsondes will carry a custom-built meteorological sensor suite similar to that which our gsbs are outfitted with and will communicate in-situ data back to their parent GSB in real-time via a closed radio network. We will also expand the closed radio network to all GSB operation, thereby ending our dependence on satellite networks such as iridium. Iridium dependence is a primary pain point in our standard operations, as well as a leading cost driver. For this project, we will develop four distinct GSB capabilities: 1. A dropsonde carrying temperature, relative humidity, pressure, and wind speed and direction sensors that can be deployed via GSB; 2. Single-link radio communication between dropsondes and gsbs; 3. A meshed radio network which will link all gsbs and create the ability to relay data without the use of satellites from anywhere in the world back to data collection stations; and 4. Augmenting the GSB with the ability to carry and individually deploy as many as 10 dropsondes. This project is currently at a TRL 4. We estimate that further developing these capabilities and making GSB dropsondes fully operational will require an 18-month period of performance and $1,500,000.00 in funding, but we understand the funding limitations of this fiscal year and are eager to accept partial funding of the project in the interest of developing this crucial capability. A proposal outlining similar development was evaluated by the air force sbir office (afwerx) as selectable/not funded, which further demonstrates the feasibility of this proposal.