UF researchers have created tiny, unmanned airplanes and submarines that can travel inside hurricanes and collect data in real time.
The miniature vehicles will gather information on storms’ strength and paths, said Kamran Mohseni, a UF professor who worked on the project.
“The problem is getting the accuracy, intensity and trajectory of a hurricane predicted well,” Mohseni said. “We noticed that the mentality of researchers is to fight the hurricane. We went in a different direction and thought we could use the hurricane.”
The 6-inch airplanes and submarines are equipped with several sensors, a radio transmitter, a GPS, a processor and a motor. Each airplane weighs about 80 grams, which is a little heavier than an egg.
The vehicles, which are controlled by computers, are launched into the air or water and act as debris that the hurricane can toss around.
To develop the submarines, Mohseni and his team of 20 graduate students studied the movement of jellyfish and squid.
The team has a squid care-and-testing facility to research movement patterns and sensory systems.
The airplanes and submarines have not been tested in an actual hurricane yet. They have, however, gone through hurricane simulations using real data.
Doug Lipinski, a postdoctoral researcher in UF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, played a large role in the simulation part of the project.
“We used data from Hurricane Rita, which hit in 2005,” Lipinski said. “That data was fairly incomplete, though, so we performed simulations to fill in what was missing. You end up with a high-resolution data set, and from there you can observe how the vehicles would work in a hurricane.”
Mohseni said the team hopes to continue testing the vehicles and eventually implement them widely.
