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ESP8266 Drone Atmosphere Sounding — Parallax Forums

ESP8266 Drone Atmosphere Sounding

geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
edited 2016-10-28 17:22 in Robotics
Thanks to an editorial error, the November "Multi-rotor Hobbyist" is available on the Servo website for free. Using an ELEV8 to take shallow soundings of the atmosphere in the outflow of a thunderstorm. Also a good excuse to play with an ESP8266 Thing I had around. Article here.

Comments

  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,161
    In a word, "Amazing!".
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    What a great project. And a beautiful write up.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    Nice article. I bought an Signal Corps radiosonde at a hamfest many moon ago. Extracted a beautiful little relay from it. My first of many!
  • geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
    Thanks for the nice words @Buck, @Heater, and @erco. I wrote one article for Nuts and Volts earlier this year, and suddenly got roped into a monthly column. It's fun, but certainly not something I thought I'd be doing.

    @erco - turns out there is a large hobby group that tracks and decodes rawinsonde data. Who knew? They are really nice little devices. I remember the models about 10-ish years ago had a battery you soaked in water to activate them.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    edited 2016-10-29 20:27
    Mine is 1970's vintage, looks just like the one below and at http://www.4wdtrips.net/forum/showthread.php?6562-quot-Wild-quot-Things-found-hiking-across-the-desert

    Aneroid barometer inside, two external metal arms which rotated forward and I believe held a paper strip to measure humidity. Very cool. I always wanted to find one in the wild but I found it at a hamfest instead. See also http://radiosondemuseum.org/photographs/

    moldedinsulationco-md-210amt-4b.jpg

    attachment.php?attachmentid=9866&d=1415933630
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    And speaking of wild things found in the desert, don't nobody ask me about the pieces of the Northrup YB-49 flying wing we found in the desert out near Edwards AFB. In 1948, it broke up at high altitude and bits & pieces rained down over a wide area. My buddy Pete is a Wing nut and tracked down the location. In one afternoon, we found several pounds of twisted aluminum wreckage in various-sized pieces. It was fitting that I found an electronic box with smashed vacuum tube inside. I saved a few tiny scraps but Pete has all the big parts. I'll see if he can send me a photo.
  • geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
    Wow, I haven't seen a sonde of that style. These are the guys I remember them using when I was in school, but I think they are mostly on to those like I showed in the article.

    Parts of the YB-49!? That would be very neat to see.

    radiosonde.JPG
    1600 x 1063 - 159K
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,656
    Interesting article and nice to see the ELEV-8 in that context. It's something to stay put in wind near the thunderstorm, despite the crash, ouch. Doing something like that with a load suspended and swinging on a tether underneath adds to the challenge.

    Author: John Leeman, any relation?

  • geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
    Tracy Allen wrote: »
    Author: John Leeman, any relation?

    Yep, geo_leeman == John Leeman

    Flying in the thunderstorm outflow was very challenging. I wish I had the telemetry recorded, but I'd say it was banked 30 degrees or so into the wind at times to hold position. 100 m up it was even more difficult! I'm excited to get GPS control and do GPS disciplined up/down soundings at controlled rates.

    I worked on a project several years back flying helical flight paths with a fixed wing taking environmental soundings, but quads make it so much easier as the runway requirement is gone.
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,161
    erco wrote: »
    And speaking of wild things found in the desert, don't nobody ask me about the pieces of the Northrup YB-49 flying wing we found in the desert out near Edwards AFB. In 1948, it broke up at high altitude and bits & pieces rained down over a wide area. My buddy Pete is a Wing nut and tracked down the location. In one afternoon, we found several pounds of twisted aluminum wreckage in various-sized pieces. It was fitting that I found an electronic box with smashed vacuum tube inside. I saved a few tiny scraps but Pete has all the big parts. I'll see if he can send me a photo.

    And that is why the base has that name. He was its pilot.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,250
    Buck Rogers wrote: »
    And that is why the base has that name. He was its pilot.

    Roger that.

    http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/YB-49_crash_site.htm

    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mojave-crash-hunter-20130531-dto-htmlstory.html#after-jump

  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,161
    Interesting article. And an excellent site.
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,656
    edited 2016-10-31 16:56
    I wasn't aware of the skew-T log-P plot that you described toward the end of the article, "This peculiar diagram makes analyzing the stability and condition of the atmosphere much easier to those who know how to use it." Indeed, I wish I had more background in that area to help with the subtleties of lapse rate and mixing. I've worked with a couple of groups that use drones at low altitude where it could help, I think. One involved dispersion of smoke above villages in India where houses are newly fitted with chimneys to help with indoor air quality. Another from the USDA wildfire research lab flew through the plumes. The lab is currently setting up fixed stations to use BMP280 barometeric sensors to monitor millibar-level pressure variations near wildfires--some of the sensors may be consumed.
  • geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
    Tracy Allen wrote: »
    I wasn't aware of the skew-T log-P plot that you described toward the end of the article

    There are other thermodynamics plots too such as the Stuve and Tephigram. The USAF used/uses skew-T's to figure out if an aircraft will leave contrails, etc. You can use them to easily spot thermal inversions too that can trap a smoke plume below a certain altitude. You can see this sometimes when smoke rising from an industrial plant reaches an inversion and has a dead flat top.

    I'd be really great if the BME680 ever comes out.... keeps getting pushed back though.
  • Alexander (Sandy) HapgoodAlexander (Sandy) Hapgood Posts: 360
    I love the term "rapid unscheduled disassembly" to describe the Elev-8 crash in your article. I've been a helicopter mechanic for nearly 40 years and that's the first time I've heard that one.
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,161
    That's a good term for a crash.

    But why is your ground crew all robotic, and from erco's space?
  • geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
    RUD was (I thought) from Elon Musk, but apparently it goes somewhat further back according to this thread.
    Buck Rogers wrote: »
    But why is your ground crew all robotic, and from erco's space?

    ??
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,161
    geo_leeman wrote: »
    RUD was (I thought) from Elon Musk, but apparently it goes somewhat further back according to this thread.
    Buck Rogers wrote: »
    But why is your ground crew all robotic, and from erco's space?

    ??
    All of his robots. They were last seen heading to where you are.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    Nice write-up for an ELEV8 Telemetry build in January Servo magazine.

    Maybe you could get Servo to release the article in PDF to the Propeller community?

    Go John!
  • geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
    You'll also spot the ELEV8 sporting an FPV camera in February!

    I've asked the editors if they would release the PDF as a documentation service to the community - I'll update here when I hear back!
  • geo_leemangeo_leeman Posts: 190
    Hey all - I was able to get Servo to make the telemetry article open. You can view it here, in theory forever!
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