The New York State UAS Test Site, TruWeather Solutions, the NUAIR Alliance and a company called Windshape have announced that using “industry-leading” micro-weather stimulations, they tested the impact of wind on the air worthiness and performance of various types of UAS.

Testing took place at the New York State UAS Test Site at Rome, New York's Griffiss International Airport.

“We know that weather impacts small drones in a variety of ways and these tests enabled us to evaluate that impact and each platform’s capacity to reject atmospheric disturbances and maintain safe flight,” explains Major General Marke F. “Hoot” Gibson (ret), chief executive officer, NUAIR Alliance.

“This information is incredibly important to the safe integration of drones in the national airspace and ultimately our ability to unlock the commercial potential of UAS.”

Utilizing a fan array with several small fans that generate variable wind profiles, Windshape’s modular wind generation system allows partners to evaluate UAS within a controlled, safe and repeatable environment for air worthiness and improved platform engineering.

“Our goal is to support the drone industry by providing drone specific test solutions,” says Guillaume Catry, CEO of Windshape. “We believe we can facilitate the drone industry by allowing manufacturers to demonstrate that their drones can overcome weather obstacles and safely achieve their mission.”

The entities describe these tests as “critically important” to the development of systems capable of performing in various types of weather conditions, which will ultimately allow the UAS industry to achieve beyond visual line of site (BVLOS) flights, as well as autonomous UAS operations.

They also note that part of that development is knowing and being able to accurately predict weather as well.

With this in mind, TruWeather has developed technology that allows UAS pilots to make more informed decisions and advance mission effectiveness by better predicting micro-weather. The more TruWeather understands how winds affect different UAS platforms, the better it can tailor its micro-weather prediction to specific platforms. 

“TruWeather envisions a day when weather alerts and predictions are specifically tailored for each drone,” says Don Berchoff, co-founder of TruWeather. “A weather simulator to test and certify drones in varying weather conditions can enable development of drone specific weather analytics to increase drone safety, productivity and revenue generation.”

WindShape will return to Syracuse for more wind and weather impact tests, which will include a long endurance flight experiment.