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

Abstract

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).