User:Meteomatics/Meteodrones

Meteomatics AG is a Swiss weather service provider and was founded in 2012 by Dr. Martin Johannes Fengler, a German mathematician and graduate of Technical University of Kaiserlautern.

Meteomatics AG is headquartered in St. Gallen, Switzerland with overseas offices in Berlin, Germany and Exeter, UK.

History
A year after Meteomatics was founded, the very first prototype of the Meteodrone was developed and the beta Weather API platform was being tested. In 2014, the first commercial Meteodrone Flight Campaign was started and Meteomatics AG received an award for its innovations as well as funding from Startfeld. In 2015 Meteomatics AG was the first ever company in Switzerland to receive and still hold BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) approval from the Federal Office of Aviation (FOCA). Two years later, in 2017, Meteomatics AG had grown to 30 employees and opened their first office abroad in Berlin, Germany. In 2018, the first Meteodrones were sold to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States of America and a second overseas office was opened in Exeter, UK.

Scope of application of the Meteodrones
Meteomatics AG provides weather data and enhances its own weather model output with data from the self-designed, developed and manufactured drones. The Meteodrones help to resolve the existing data gap for weather data within the planetary boundary layer and therefore improve weather forecasts.

In 2017 there are already three different types of the weather drone: the Meteodrone SSE, the Meteodrone and the Meteodrone XL. Depending on the type, the drones weigh between 0.7kg and 5kg, have a ground station and navigation lights. If control over the flying drone is lost, there are special emergency systems needed in order to prevent damage to the drone itself, as well as people and other objects. This is the reason why all of the Meteodrones are equipped with specially developed and patented emergency rescue systems. At least two passive buoyancy elements are arranged symmetrically in radial direction around the vertical axis of the drone. When it comes to a loss of control, the drone will start to spin around its vertical axis and therefore it will stabilize itself. Moreover, the rotation generates a dynamic buoyancy which will reduce the speed of falling of the drone. Meteomatics has this innovation patented in the United States.

In Switzerland, upon approval of the Federal Office of Aviation (FOCA), Meteodrones are allowed to fly beyond the visual line of sight. This means that Meteodrones are allowed to fly even when it’s cloudy and foggy. Since March 2017 the Meteodrones are even allowed to not only fly during the nights, but also fly during the day beyond the visual line of sight (Extend-VLOS-Approval). Every night, professional drone pilots fly the drones in order to collect new weather data.

NOAA for example uses the drone enhanced weather data to improve tornado forecasts as well as to extend reaction time before impact. The Swiss Radio and TV Station, SRF also works with drone enhanced weather data, in this case, with the more precise weather model SWISS1k. Due to the resolution of 1km, the forecasts are very precise and accurate. The canton of Grisons used the drones to explore the exact regional pollutant dispersion in Misox.