Atmospheric research by the team of Dr. Bertrand Dano at FIU and their extramural colleagues will utilize the Instrument for research in air quality, climate change, and wind mapping for wind power.

The Instrument's balloon module can carry up to 12 sensors at a time, including: temperature, humidity, CO2 and other gas sensors, pressure, radiation, pyranometer (visible, IR and UV radiation) and PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) sensors. The Instrument's balloons are lighter than air and do not use propellers. They can stay for extended periods of time, and are easily moveable, either by hand, or drifting with the wind. In either case, they do not disturb the surrounding air, making them the ideal for air quality sensing, which will have paramount effect on climate change studies.

The Instrument's imagery and data can depict the atmospheric pollution patterns over super resolution imagery of land and buildings; its data analytics can locate pollutions sources and predict affected areas. Its recorded tracks will facilitate broad area pattern analysis of surface air, useful for wind energy studies, architecture and planning drift patterns for balloons.

Wind energy is one of the most cost-effective sources of new electricity generation in wind-rich regions. Utility companies can lock in wind energy prices for 20 to 30 years because the fuel is free. That's one reason wind power has added 35 percent of all new generating capacity to the U.S. grid since 2007- twice the capacity coal and nuclear have added combined. Ten states now produce between 10% and 25% of their electricity from wind power. [AWEA]

The wind as an energy resource for producing electricity is inexhaustible, free and almost always available somewhere. Wind energy is fueled from the kinetic energy of the wind, making wind a clean fuel source. Wind energy doesn't pollute the air like power plants that rely on combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas. Two types of wind turbines exist: Horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) and vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). HAWT are generally much taller than VAWT and their axis need to be aligned with the wind direction. VAWT are omni-directional to the wind direction and are typically are much smaller in size. For both types, knowledge of the wind speed and direction is important. Wind turbines are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy by positioning in a location so as to receive the full effect of the wind yet not disturb the immediate environment. Typically the wind turbine is positioned about thirty meters (30m) above the ground where they can take advantage of winds that are not affected by ground effect obstructions [Spera, D.; Zha, G.].

Both HAWT and VAWT solely rely of wind mapping (magnitude and direction). This is usually accomplished via satellite remote sensing, or discrete sampling [Sinnott, T.]. The Instrument's intrinsic geo-referencing system can acquire wind direction; its platforms can carry up to 12 Instruments at a time, including: temperature, humidity, pressure, and anemometer sensors; they can sense lower than any plane and higher than any pole, which is where most wind turbines are installed.

References Cited

[AWE+13] "Small Winds", American Wind Energy Association, https://www.awea.org/Issues/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=4592

[AWE+94] "Utilities & wind power", American Wind Energy Association, http://www.awea.org/Issues/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=4352&navItemNumber=669 Spera, David A. "Wind turbine technology." (1994).

[ZD13] G. Zha and B. Dano. "Vertical Axis Wind Turbine." U.S. Patent No. 20,130,115,069. 9 May 2013.

[ST14] T. Sinnott, "Portraits of Wind." Cartographic Perspectives 74 (2014): 71-72.