Calibrated UAS Data files from SCALES

The Small-UAS Coordination for Atmospheric Low-level Environmental Sampling (SCALES) project was conducted 8-13 September 2024. The goals of SCALES were to demonstrate the current capabilities of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) to collect in situ measurements of the kinematic (u,v,w) and thermodynamic (p,T,q) properties of the lower atmosphere at two different spatial scales. The entire SCALES campaign covered a 200 km x 200 km region across northeastern Oklahoma, U.S. The MesoSCALES component was designed to demonstrate the "3D mesonet" concept whereby a subset of exisiting OK mesonet stations were augmented with vertically profiling multi-rotor weather-sensing UAS (wxUAS). Observations from these simultaneously profiling wxUAS captured spatial variability in the 3D evolution of the lower atmosphere at unprecendent spatial resolution. At the same time, a MicroSCALES campaign utilized a "swarm" of muti-rotor, fixed-wing and vertical takeoff and landing wxUAS to sample microscale variability in the boundary layer surrounding Tulsa, OK to sample both urban heat island effects and the influence of the urban landscape on downwind characteristics of winds and turbulence.

A total of 1064 flight were flown as part of the Flight Week field campaign which took place from 9-13 Sept 2024. An additional 84 intercomparison flights were flown during the intercomparison field day on 8 Sept 2024. The wxUAS data collected during the intercomparison field day on 8 Sept 2024 were compared with radiosonde observations and measurements from an instrumented tower as well as a data from a colocated reference wxUAS that was flown simultaneous with all other wxUAS. Note that only comparisons during vertical profiles were used to determine the calibration coefficients and offsets.  The comparisons between the reference wxUAS and all other UAS flown were used to intercalibrate all of the other UAS with some exceptions as described in the README file.