The US Navy has launched automated weather drones – Meteodrones produced by Meteomatics – from a moving vessel to collect frequently unobserved atmospheric data critical to maritime operations. The trial, conducted as part of the Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) in the Mississippi Sound near Gulfport, was designed to enhance operational readiness and safety for naval missions.
Historically, capturing precise, localized weather intelligence for naval operations has proven difficult. Weather balloons are almost impossible to launch and track reliably from moving vessels, and the broad coverage satellites provide lacks the vertical resolution needed for tactical decisions.
“For the last decade, US military weather services have sought to consistently and reliably measure the atmosphere over the open ocean to improve forecast accuracy and identify atmospheric anomalies,” said Kevin Lacroix, weather services technology lead, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command. “Products with the capability to collect-high resolution, real-time atmospheric data, repeatedly, in environments of interest are valuable to military weather services for sensing the maritime boundary layer of the atmosphere.”
To bridge this gap, the US navy trialled the Meteodrone’s ability to launch and recover from a moving ship at speeds ranging from 1.5kts to 16kts. Operating under FAA regulations, shipboard Meteodrones collected complete vertical atmospheric profiles, including temperature, humidity, pressure, dew point and wind. It was reported that across multiple runs the Meteodrones returned safely for recovery and the system validated stable and autonomous performance in a maritime environment.
Using the real-time observations collected by the Meteodrones, the US Navy can improve mission safety by reducing risks for aircraft take-offs, landing and in-flight operations. They are also said to strengthen operational readiness and improve awareness of how the environment may extend or degrade radar and communication ranges.
“Beyond the weather forecasting improvements the real-time information gathered by the Meteodrone give us, we have an opportunity to feed critical information into our electromagnetic tactical decision aids, making the safety and security of the ship and the battlegroup more effective by optimizing our radar performance,” said LaCroix. “Ship captains will have the confidence to make rapid decisions knowing that the METOC team has given them every advantage possible.”
“This demonstration underscored not just the technical success of our Meteodrones, but also the practical value of capturing critical weather data at sea. By proving that launches and recoveries can be achieved from moving vessels, we’ve shown how Meteomatics can help the Navy bridge one of the most significant gaps in operational forecasting,” said Brad Guay, head of government and defense solutions at Meteomatics.
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