A Wireless Network for Collection and Synthesis of Mobile Mesoscale Weather Observations

Abstract

This paper reports the development of a wireless network of instrumented vehicles and aircraft for the real-time collection and synthesis of their mobile weather observations in mesoscale field experiments. The mobile digital network (MDN) utilizes 900-MHz radio frequency modem technology, enabling real-time data transmissions at up to 115 kbit s?1 across a domain of about 40 km on a side. The effective throughput of the network of multiple mobile units is about 40 kbit s?1 due to overhead from data quality checking and acknowledgment that data have been received. After gathering data from mobile observing platforms at a centrally located mobile command post, both image products and data are then uplinked via geostationary satellite at about 80 kbit s?1 and served to the Internet. The first application of the MDN was to mobile field observations obtained during the International H2O Project (IHOP).