Executive Summary

This project, sponsored by Research Scientist Dr. Jooil Kim of Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s (SIO) Keeling and Weiss labs, involves installing an anemometer onto a drone. The wind speed and direction data this project collects supports his goal of tracking the movement of greenhouse gases and locating emission sources. To achieve this, the design must take wind measurements undisturbed by the drone’s propellers, integrate Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors, log data locally, and display live data wirelessly, all while staying below the drone’s maximum payload weight and using an easily replicable structure. An ASA and carbon fiber mount holds the anemometer above the propeller wash, and a Raspberry Pi (RPi) logs gathered data. WiFi and LoRa (long range) radio waves were both viable for wireless live data transmission, the latter being used for longer range flights when no WiFi network is available. Tests done above Scripps Pier alongside weather balloons demonstrated that the system was able to collect and send data up to the Federal Aviation Administration limit of 120 m (400 ft) using UCSD’s WiFi network. The data was compared to the weather balloons’ post-test. Additional LoRa range tests showed communications ranging between 227 m (745 ft) and 355.7 m (1167 ft).