Drones Used for Weather Research

Pre‑programmed drone flights are emerging as a new tool for studying the boundary layer, the portion of the atmosphere that extends from the ground to a few thousand metres. Traditional weather stations sit too low to capture the full vertical profile, while aircraft missions are costly. Instrumented weather balloons have long filled this gap, with thousands launched daily, yet they drift with the wind and rely on finite helium supplies, limiting their reliability and repeatability.

The U.S. company Meteomatics has developed Meteobase, a ground‑mounted base station that automatically launches and recovers a drone. The aircraft follows a pre‑programmed trajectory, collecting temperature, humidity, pressure and wind data at multiple altitudes before returning to the base to recharge and offload its recordings. The Meteobase then transmits the data to researchers, providing a cost‑effective, repeatable alternative to balloons and aircraft for boundary‑layer observations.

By combining autonomous launch and recovery with a fixed ground hub, Meteobase offers a scalable solution that can deliver high‑resolution vertical profiles on demand. The system’s ability to repeatedly sample the same atmospheric column could improve weather forecasting and climate research, particularly in regions where traditional observation platforms are sparse or expensive.