Imagery enhancement to meteorological collection platform

The Army research laboratory (ARL) at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico is developing a new weather information gathering resource to provide the Army with the capability to gather meteorological data from battlefield areas that are data sparse. This new resource deemed DAMTA (disposable, air-droppable, meteorological tower array) will consist of multiple individual meteorological towers which will be dispersed over selected battlefield locations by helicopter. They will collect and transmit weather data such as wind direction, wind speed, humidity, barometric pressure and temperature for up to 30 days. The authors received $100K to investigate the inclusion of imagery sensors on the DAMTA to enable users to see near real-time, remote images of the sky and horizon to assist in gathering weather information for mission planning. The project involved purchase, testing, analysis and selection of the best available off-the-shelf imagery sensors (cameras) to be integrated with the DAMTA.