Real-Time Wind Estimation and Display for Chem/Bio Attack Response using UAV Data

The defense response to a Chemical and Biological attack would be importantly based on predicting the dispersion of a toxic cloud. Considering that an Unmanned Air Vehicle would provide the capability for embedding and positioning inertial and air data sensors geographically as required, real-time wind estimation can be performed for every actual position of the flying device in order to predict the plume moving direction. The efforts in this thesis concentrate on the demonstration and validation of procedures for obtaining Wind Estimation close to real-time and its instantaneous monitoring. The presented work is based on a particular UAV platform available at the NPS Aeronautical Department and it aims to establish a general methodology, which may be used on other flying devices with similar available sensors. An accurate estimation of real wind for a particular combat scenario will enable operational units to have a near real-time decision aid. This final result could be integrated into a Command and Control net, to assist in a focused way the response to a Chemical and Biological attack and to map the source or the region to be affected.Naval Postgraduate School Monterey CA is the author of 'Real-Time Wind Estimation and Display for Chem/Bio Attack Response using UAV Data', published 2003 under ISBN 9781423500865 and ISBN 1423500865.