University of Iowa engineering researchers are building capabilities to make Iowa a destination for measuring atmospheric and environmental data crucial for understanding effects of climate change.
The Operator Performance Laboratory’s (OPL) L-39ZA research jet will soon be equipped with an AgilePod — a modular, flight-approved container — into which partners on campus, other universities, and government agencies can mount instruments for gathering local and regional Earth observation data. When gathering data, this aircraft can fly at true airspeeds between 150 and 350 MPH with the pod attached.
While satellites provide a global perspective for Earth observations, data captured from aircraft platforms can provide detailed, high-accuracy measurements over local and regional areas. In this way, airborne sensors provide a complement to, and often validation of, spaceborne measurements.
"Satellites move at 7,500 meters per second,” said project lead Matthew McGill, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering and faculty affiliate of the Iowa Technology Institute (ITI). “They zip by in fixed orbits that don’t capture variability across the day, and measurement resolution tends to be coarse. Airplanes move a lot slower, perhaps 200 meters per second. At airplane altitude, sensors generally can make measurements with higher spatial resolution and better data quality than is possible from space.”
Directed by Tom “Mach” Schnell, Captain Jim "Max" Gross Chair in Engineering and professor of industrial and computer engineering, OPL offers 14 airborne research platforms less than a mile from campus. Schnell is also a member of ITI.
“This capability for airborne research does not exist in the Midwest,” said McGill, an expert in instrument development who joined Iowa after 25 years at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. “The OPL capability represents truly untapped potential for the university to become a destination for the science community to conduct field campaigns and test new sensor prototypes.”
The three-year, $1.2 million project was one of two research projects selected under UI’s P3 funding, which is designed to advance strategic campus initiatives. The project will enable scientists to target ground-level and airborne data on a wide variety of subjects, such as air quality and pollution, nitrate runoff, soil moisture, and wildfires at more detailed levels.
The team of 14 faculty and research scientists come from the departments of chemical and biochemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, civil and environmental engineering, physics and astronomy, chemistry, occupational and environmental health, and geographical and sustainability sciences. Undergraduate students will also gain valuable opportunities conducting research.
“We are honored to have the strategic and scientific importance of this investment recognized by the P3 program,” McGill said. “The sky is the limit.”