Brian Argrow News

Chasing hail: Researchers fly drones into storms as part of largest U.S. hail study in 40 years

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:41:36 +0000

Chasing hail: Researchers fly drones into storms as part of largest U.S. hail study in 40 years Jeff Zehnder Tue, 06/17/2025 - 14:41

Gray clouds swirl above a dusty highway in eastern Colorado between the towns of Akron and Atwood—what’s left of a thunderstorm that rolled through this stretch of prairie and rangeland just minutes before.

Wind whistles through patches of stubbly grass nearby. Then a hiss and a pop break the silence. A group of researchers release a blast of compressed air to fling a flying drone from a metal scaffold, or “catapult,” sitting on top of a white SUV. The uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) measures more than 6 feet from wingtip to wingtip. It catches the wind, and its rear propeller buzzes to life, lifting the plane dozens of feet into the air in a matter of seconds.

Céu Gómez-Faulk makes adjustments to the RAAVEN drone. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

The IRISS team rides out an oncoming storm near Wichita, Kansas. (Patrick Campbell/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

The chase is on.

Aerospace engineering sciences Professor Brian Argrow and his team at the University of Colorado Boulder have joined a research project called the In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains, or ICECHIP. For six weeks this summer, scientists from 15 U.S. research institutions and three overseas are criss-crossing the country from Colorado east to Iowa and from Texas to North Dakota.

They’re searching for summer thunderstorms.

The group is exploring the conditions that give rise to hail in this part of the country—peaking in the summer and causing billions of dollars of damage every year. In the United States, hail is most common in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and nearby regions, which are sometimes dubbed “hail alley.” Today, ice the size of grapes and even bigger litter the side of Colorado’s State Highway 63.

The campaign is led by Rebecca Adams-Selin at the company Atmospheric and Environmental Research and is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. It’s the largest effort to study hail in the United States in 40 years.

The researchers hope to understand not just how ice forms miles above the ground, but also how homeowners and builders can protect their properties from dangerous weather. They’ll do that by using radar to peer inside hailstorms. They’ll collect and freeze hailstones, and they’ll crush hail in vice-like devices to see how strong it is. Argrow’s team is usings its drone to map the swaths of hail that storms leave behind them in their wake.

“It is about saving lives and saving property,” said Argrow, professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and director of the Integrated Remote and In-Situ Sensing (IRISS) research center at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. “We’re working with meteorologists and atmospheric scientists trying to increase warning times to give people a chance to get to safety and work with engineers and insurance companies to build better infrastructure to withstand these onslaughts.”

His team pilots the plane, known as the RAAVEN, short for Robust Autonomous Airborne Vehicle - Endurant and Nimble, north toward the rear flank of the thunderstorm. Then, they jump into two SUVs and follow the drone as it flies as low as 120 feet above them. A camera in the plane’s belly captures the ice trailing behind the storm. From that vantage point, the landscape, normally brown dotted with green, now also has pearly white patches for hundreds of yards in either direction.

For Céu Gómez-Faulk, who’s piloting the drone today, the sight is a testament to thunderstorms.

“It’s awe-inspiring in a very serious sort of way,” said Gómez-Faulk, a graduate student in aerospace engineering sciences.

Credit: College of Engineering and Applied Science

Dark skies

Five days earlier, Argrow and his team from ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� join the ICECHIP armada at a Phillips 66 gas station in Greensburg, Kansas. The crew includes three graduate students, two IRISS employees and Eric Frew, professor of aerospace engineering sciences. They’re marking the first day of the project’s field season, or what the researchers call Intensive Observation Period 1 (IOP 1).

Judging by the conditions, the team should have plenty to study today. Weathervanes sitting on top of vans whip in circles as gusts blow a misty rain through Greensburg, a town in south central Kansas that is home to just over 700 people.

What makes hail

When conditions are right in states like Kansas and Colorado, winds blowing over the prairie can start to lift upward, forming a powerful column of rising air. These updrafts can push clouds from the lowest layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere, up to the colder stratosphere, which begins miles above Earth’s surface.

Within those towering, cauliflower-like clouds, tiny drops of water may freeze, then bounce around in the air—a sort of atmospheric game of Plinko.

That’s how hail is born.

“It starts with what we call a hail embryo, or ice,” said Katja Friedrich, professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. “It goes through the cloud, and it accumulates supercooled liquid, which is liquid that is below freezing. The embryos accumulate more and more until they fall.”

But there’s still a lot that scientists don’t know about what happens inside the clouds.

To help find out, Friedrich is participating in the ICECHIP campaign through an effort that’s separate from Argrow’s team and its drone. Over the summer, two researchers in her lab, Jack Whiting and Brady Herron, are traveling with the armada in a red pickup truck. They’re using a device called a microwave radiometer to collect measurements of the air that rushes into hailstorms from outside—exploring how environmental conditions can feed a storm to keep it churning, or even cause it to die off.

“It’s my dream to be doing this, to be in the field studying severe weather,” said Whiting, who graduated from ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� with a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric and oceanic sciences in spring 2025. “There’s a good chance that these events are going to become more frequent in the future because of climate change, so it’s really important to understand these dangerous storms.”

“This is relatively typical this time of the year, mid-May for the Great Plains. That’s when the storms really turn up and pass through,” Argrow said. “If you live in this area, you know what this means.”

In Greensburg, they definitely do.

In 2007, a tornado ripped through the heart of this community, damaging or destroying more than 1,400 homes and buildings and killing 10 people. Just hours after the ICECHIP crew departed on May 18 this spring, another tornado touched down south of Greensburg. It traveled 11 miles before dying out, and no injuries were reported.

Argrow is no stranger to the danger storms bring. He grew up in Stroud, Oklahoma, in the heart of Tornado Alley and remembers sheltering in his family’s storm cellar during severe weather warnings.

The engineer and his colleagues previously worked on a project, led by long-time collaborator. Adam Houston of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, called Targeted Observation by Radar and UAS of Supercells (TORUS). Over two seasons, the group flew RAAVEN aircraft into supercell thunderstorms, the phenomena that give rise to dangerous tornadoes.

But while storm-chasers may pay a lot of attention to those kinds of weather events, hail causes more damage than tornadoes every year, said Ian Giammanco. He’s the lead research meteorologist for the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), a non-profit organization supported by property insurance and reinsurance companies.

Since 2012, hail has caused an estimated $280 billion worth of damage in the United States, according to IBHS estimates. The largest piece of hail ever discovered was about 8 inches wide, the size of a large cantaloupe.

“Our role is to understand how we can design better building materials to withstand hail,” said Giammanco, whose team is joining the ICECHIP expedition on the road. “Whether it’s a lot of small hail, or these really big hailstones, we want to understand what that risk looks like.”

Ellington Smith, a graduate student on Argrow’s team, was an undergrad at Iowa State University in spring 2023 when hailstorms erupted around the state, flattening corn fields.

“Knowing what hail can do to farmland, its’ really important to be able to quantify the damage—figuring out why these hailstorms happen and how to better predict them,” Smith said.

Intrepid aircraft

Adams-Selin and the ICECHIP team are taking what she calls a “holistic” approach to studying those kinds of dangers.

The study armada is something to behold: At the start of the field season, the ICECHIP campaign included around 100 researchers traveling in more than 20 vehicles—including pickup trucks with mesh canopies overhead to protect them from hail damage and two Doppler on Wheels trucks. These massive vehicles carry portable, swiveling radar dishes that can peer into the heart of hailstorms.

“ICECHIP is 100% NSF funded,” Adams-Selin said. “If you want to know who is responsible for improved hail forecasts, better understanding of hail science and any of these technological advances that we are using, like mobile radar, that is all NSF funding.”

The IRISS team depends on a vehicle that is a little smaller—the RAAVEN.

It’s a tough little drone. The aircraft is based off a kit designed by the company Ritewing RC. This same design inspired a storm-chasing drone that appeared in the 2024 summer blockbuster Twisters. The body of the RAAVEN is made from the same kind of foam that’s in your car bumper. It also carries sensors for measuring wind speeds and air pressure, temperature and humidity.

If the RAAVEN is flying with the wind, it can hit speeds of 75 miles per hour or more, and the aircraft can fly for up to two hours uninterrupted.

“Radar can only tell you so much,” said Frew, who joins Argrow on the ICECHIP campaign. “To really further our understanding of the atmosphere, you have to be in it.”

For ICECHIP, the team also added a 360-degree camera that drops out of the belly of the RAAVEN after it launches.

The IRISS team’s key role on the ICECHIP campaign is to measure the swaths of hail that storms leave in their wake.

A storm builds near Greensburg, Kansas. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��)

The team doesn’t fly the RAAVEN directly into storms for ICECHIP. Instead, it stays safely behind the bad weather, soaring in a zig-zag pattern in the wake of hailstorms as they billow across the landscape. Using the drone’s camera in real-time, the researchers view the area below that’s covered in ice. They can then measure the width of these hail swaths, capturing how big a storm’s path of destruction can grow. Argrow likens it to “a snail that leaves a trail.”

Federal Aviation Administration rules require Argrow’s team to stay in sight of the RAAVEN at all times. To do that, the researchers get in their SUVs.

Gómez-Faulk explained that the RAAVEN is semi-autonomous. Pilots like him can control where the aircraft goes, but it’s also programed to follow a sort of digital marker the team refers to as a “carrot.”

“There’s a carrot guide point that we set off some distance from the car, usually in front of the car,” he said. “The aircraft is going to chase that guide point as we drive.”

Heart pounding

Back in Greensburg, Frew emphasizes that safety is the number one priority of the IRISS team. But he acknowledges that central Kansas at the height of storm season may be an odd place to find an aerospace engineer.

Before Frew started working on projects like TORUS and ICECHIP, he didn’t know a lot about weather. His time on these studies, however, has taught him to respect the power of storms—and what engineers can accomplish when they bring their work out of the lab and into the real, windy world.

“The first time I did it, my heart was pounding. I didn’t know what to expect,” Frew said. “In order to understand this environment, someone has to go into it and take the measurements, and that’s what we’re here for.”

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Flying into hail storms for weather forecasting research

Jeff Zehnder — Wed, 07 May 2025 14:08:08 +0000

Flying into hail storms for weather forecasting research Jeff Zehnder Wed, 05/07/2025 - 08:08

This is an all out exploration of hail storms from the ground up. Our data from aloft will be combined with the data on the ground, which is also combined with radar trucks away from the storm. In the end, meteorologists will have a complete profile of the storm and its inner workings." - Brian Argrow

Follow the field campaign @CU Engineering on Instagram.

Hail Field Day

Sat., May 17, 2025. 2-4 p.m.

See all the scientific instruments deploying on the ICECHIP Campaign

Come See:

Doppler on wheels
Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
Hail video and collection instruments
And more!

4820 63rd St., Suite 102
Boulder, CO 80301
(Next to Avery Brewing)

University of Colorado Boulder researchers are preparing to fan out across eastern Colorado and the Great Plains to study how hail storms form to improve weather forecasting.

Project ICECHIP (In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains) is a major, multi-university, international research initiative funded by the National Science Foundation.

This is the largest U.S.-based hail-focused field campaign in over 40 years.

What is happening?

Led by Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., researchers from 15 colleges and universities, 3 international partners, and insurance industry representatives will deploy for six weeks to gather observations from a wide variety of hailstorms and hail types.

Coordinating with dozens of mobile sensor platforms, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� will deploy uncrewed aircraft systems, including the RAAVEN fixed-wing drone, for hail-swath surveys.

This initiative will improve radar-based hail detection, hail models and forecasting, and weather warnings.

When is the field campaign happening?

May 15, 2025 - June 30, 2025

Who is involved?

Two teams of ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� researchers and students, led by:

Aerospace Engineering Sciences
- Distinguished Professor Brian Argrow
- Professor Eric Frew
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
- Professor Katja Friedrich

Full list of university, international, federal, and business partners

Where will the field research occur?

The campaign will cover Eastern Colorado and the 11 states that comprise the Great Plains, spanning from the Canadian Border to Odessa, TX.

Céu Gómez-Faulk in a RECUV radar vehicle during a previous tornado campaign.

RAAVEN fixed-wing drone in flight.

RAAVEN uncrewed aerial system in midflight.

University of Colorado Boulder researchers preparing to fan out across eastern Colorado and the Great Plains to study how hail storms form to improve weather fore...

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� will share atmospheric science tech, expertise through new grant

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 21:52:16 +0000

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� will share atmospheric science tech, expertise through new grant Jeff Zehnder Mon, 10/07/2024 - 15:52

Jeff Zehnder

Above: RAAVEN uncrewed aerial vehicle over the Atlantic Ocean.
Header Image: Meteorological map showing storms during a deployment.

Drone technology and atmospheric science instruments developed by the University of Colorado Boulder will be available to researchers nationwide through a new grant.

The National Science Foundation has awarded ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� a three-year, $1 million grant to establish a Community Instruments and Facilities program titled Mobile Uncrewed Systems for Atmospheric Science (MUSAS).

“We have a track record for atmospheric research with the equipment we’ve created and the campaigns we’ve partnered in. Whenever atmospheric scientists need to collect data in environments they can’t get other ways, that’s where we come in,” said Brian Argrow, principal investigator for the grant.

Argrow, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is a nationally recognized expert in uncrewed aerial systems. He and ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� colleagues have spent decades developing fixed-wing and quad-copter-style drone systems to study weather and other atmospheric conditions.

Their work has spanned the globe, including in extreme conditions like the North Pole and several campaigns in the United States to analyze supercell thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes.

The new grant will provide the larger scientific community access to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� instrumentation and know-how.

“We’re bringing aerospace to the atmospheric sciences community,” Argrow said. “We have the expertise, the drones, the deployment systems, and regulatory approval to fly in the national airspace system.”

Although the program does not officially begin until Nov. 1, Argrow said they have already been contacted by a university with a partnership proposal.

Inspecting a RAAVEN drone while on deployment.

“By increasing access to small uncrewed aerial systems, we’ll increase the amount of data available to the broader community to help solve some of the toughest problems in atmospheric science. Our technology can sample the physics and chemistry of the lower atmosphere and offer new perspectives on this environment,” Argrow said.

MUSAS joins a network of NSF-supported initiatives across the country that allow universities to share research equipment and expertise.

Through the program, partners will have access to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� personnel as well as the RAAVEN and Super RAAVEN fixed-wing drones and the CopterSonde 3 quad-copter, along with deployment and tracking vehicles.

Argrow anticipates an array of research to come from the partnerships, including into boundary layer processes, coastal circulations, aerosol processes, turbulence and turbulent fluxes, surface-atmosphere exchange, high-latitude environments, and severe weather.

“Building on the initial investment from the CU Grand Challenge Initiative, we have assembled infrastructure which is unique,” Argrow said. “��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� has extensive experience operating and developing these systems, and this gives us the opportunity to expand our impact.”

Drone technology and atmospheric science instruments developed by ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� will be available to researchers nationwide through a new grant. The National Science Foundation has...

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Blockbuster science: Storm-chasing drone appears in ‘Twisters’

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 18:58:46 +0000

Blockbuster science: Storm-chasing drone appears in ‘Twisters’ Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/18/2024 - 12:58

A storm-chasing drone operated by researchers at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� got the blockbuster treatment when a version inspired by it appeared in the summer popcorn flick “Twisters.”

The RAAVEN drone was developed by researchers at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Integrated Remote and In-Situ Sensing (IRISS) program. It’s part of the Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS of Supercells (TORUS) project, a research effort that uses small drones and remote-sensing instruments to collect data on tornado formation in supercell thunderstorms. TORUS is led by principal investigator Adam Houston of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Brian Argrow and Eric Frew, professors in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��, are among the co-principal investigators for the project.

In trailer scenes for “Twisters,” an uncrewed aircraft that matches RAAVEN swoops like a fighter jet toward storm clouds.

The RAAVEN’s appearance in the trailer surprised and delighted Argrow, its lead developer, when he first viewed it during the Super Bowl halftime this past February.

Argrow said he didn’t realize a blockbuster like “Twisters” was underway when a film crew contacted him in April 2023 for permission to create a radio-controlled model of the RAAVEN. He directed the moviemakers to make arrangements with the drone’s airframe manufacturer.

“I don’t usually watch the halftime show, so I was about to go downstairs when the trailer came on,” he recounted. “I was shocked. This really is a big movie! And as I was watching, the RAAVEN appears. I said to my wife: ‘Did you see that? That’s a RAAVEN!’”

However, the RAAVEN already is a star.

Since 2017, the 6-and-a-half-foot wingspan drone has played a leading role in TORUS, which combines drones and tracking vehicles to gather thunderstorm data. TORUS explores how supercell thunderstorms give rise to tornadoes, and the researchers hope to help improve tornado warnings across the country. The project also involves the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, the University of Oklahoma's Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations and Texas Tech University.

The RAAVEN can fly as fast as 90 miles per hour and has a battery life of up to three hours, putting it ahead of standard rotary wing drones, which can’t keep up with storms moving at 30 to 60 miles per hour and often run short of battery life, Argrow said.

“No one else is doing what we do,” he said, adding that it’s the RAAVEN and its mobile ground stations, authorized by the FAA, that make the research unique.

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Argrow named a CU Distinguished Professor

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 18:54:35 +0000

Argrow named a CU Distinguished Professor Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/09/2023 - 11:54

The University of Colorado this week welcomed six new members to its roster of Distinguished Professors, a title signifying the highest honor awarded to faculty across the CU system’s four campuses.

CU Distinguished Professors are tenured faculty members who demonstrate exemplary performance in research or creative work; a record of excellence in promoting learning and student attainment of knowledge and skills; and outstanding service to the profession, the university and its affiliates.

The CU Board of Regents on Nov. 7 voted to approve the cohort of faculty members, recommended by President Todd Saliman with the concurrence of the systemwide Committee of Distinguished Professors. This year’s honorees will be formally celebrated during a board meeting in spring 2024.

Including this year’s honorees, 144 Distinguished Professors have been named since the title’s establishment in 1977.

Distinguished Professors for 2023 are:

Brian Argrow, Ph.D., Glenn L. Murphy Professor, Ann & H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences; Director, Integrated Remote & In-Situ Sensing Systems Program (IRISS), College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado Boulder

Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2022, Argrow is widely recognized for his pioneering efforts in the design and deployment of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to penetrate tornadoes, supercell thunderstorms and other severe weather events, gathering previously unattainable data. These remarkable results required aerodynamic and sensor sophistication, but also the development and utilization of mobile communications networks that enabled highly sophisticated communication and telemetry in incredibly dynamic environments.

Argrow is one of the first pioneers to study and later utilize mobile ad hoc networks to gather scientific information. He also is well-known for his work on atmospherics and low-density gas dynamics that are highly relevant to the development of super- and hypersonic vehicles.

Argrow’s impact extends beyond the scientific and engineering realms. His work on unmanned aircraft systems has been central in shaping the Federal Aviation Administration’s standards of operation for small UAS. His work continues to inform, and at times change, those FAA UAS flight standards. His severe weather work has been helpful in the development of better models to predict severe weather events, and in so doing, to mitigate the loss of property and life to those events.

Argrow is among the lead architects of the nationally and internationally recognized Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences undergraduate curriculum. He served as the associate dean of education in CEAS for five years during a period of incredible growth and transformation in the college. Part of the ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� community since 1992, Argrow has been honored with many awards and accolades for outstanding teaching, service and leadership.

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� honored for drone research

Anonymous — Tue, 23 May 2023 15:05:20 +0000

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� honored for drone research Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/23/2023 - 09:05

Above: ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� RAAVEN (Robust Autonomous Airborne Vehicle - Endurant and Nimble) uncrewed aerial vehicle flying over a wind farm.
Headline Photo: Showcasing a large uncrewed aerial vehicle east of Boulder.

The University of Colorado Boulder has been named 1st place winner in Academic Research category of the XCELLENCE Awards by the Association for Uncrewed Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI).

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� was selected from a pool of applicants for their work in uncrewed systems technology. Winners were publicly congratulated during the XCELLENCE awards ceremony during AUVSI XPONENTIAL on May 9.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECUV), and Integrated Remote and In Situ Sensing Program (IRISS) have led small uncrewed aerial systems (sUAS) research for more than 20 years. With increasingly autonomous operations, this research supports applications from military communications to severe convective storms over the Great Plains to ocean-atmosphere interactions in the Arctic and the tropics.

“On behalf of my colleagues in the Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles, the Integrated Remote and In Situ Sensing Program, and our collaborators around the world, I thank AUVSI for recognizing our UAS research with the 2023 XCELLENCE Award for Academic Research. We look forward to this recognition encouraging even more partnerships and collaborations," said Brian Argrow, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and director of IRISS.

Major achievements from ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� UAS programs include:

Design and demonstration of the US Air Force Ad-Hoc UAS Ground Network (AUGNet), the first meshed-radio, mobile ad-hoc network supported by multi-sUAS teams
FAA certificates of authorization for severe-weather research now covering more than 500,000 sq-mi of the Great Plains
The first sUAS meteorological measurements in a tornadic supercell thunderstorm, part of the NSF/NOAA Second Verification of the Origin of Rotation in Supercells Experiment (VORTEX2)
Multi-sUAS measurements of turbulence in the nocturnal boundary layer in the month-long NSF Instabilities, Dynamics, and Energetics Accompanying Layering (IDEAL) campaign in Utah
sUAS measurements in 15 supercells (seven with tornadoes) during the 2019 NSF/NOAA Targeted Observations with Radar and UAS of Supercells (TORUS) campaign
Monthlong measurement campaign from Barbados for NOAA’s Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC) in 2020
6-month sUAS measurement campaign to study sea-ice-atmosphere interactions from the Polarstern icebreaker near the North Pole for the international MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition
4-month campaign supporting the US DOE’s Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER) near Houston, TX

Other sUAS campaigns include the North Slope of Alaska, Antarctica, Peru, Japan, and Norway.

The AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards honor innovators with a demonstrated commitment to advancing autonomy, leading, and promoting safe adoption of uncrewed systems and developing programs that use these technologies to save lives and improve the human condition.

For more information about AUVSI visit AUVSI.org. For more information about the AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards and XPONENTIAL 2023, visit xponential.org.

The University of Colorado Boulder has been named 1st place winner in Academic Research category of the XCELLENCE Awards by the Association for Uncrewed Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI). ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� was selected from a...

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Brian Argrow reflects on time as chair and future of DEI in STEM

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 21:33:50 +0000

Brian Argrow reflects on time as chair and future of DEI in STEM Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/24/2022 - 14:33

Like many young people across America at the time, Brian Argrow was mesmerized by images beamed back to Earth of American astronauts engaged in the Space Race.

He was just a little too young for Mercury but was certainly enraptured by the Gemini and Apollo missions. And he clearly remembers the moon landing – an event that still gives him goosebumps to this day to think about.

“That was also the golden age of aircraft in general with the advancements in supersonic aircraft like the X-15,” he said. “I was really fascinated by all of it. And my early love of astronomy fed into that as well. Put it all together and what else could it be for me than aerospace engineering?”

Today, Argrow is a professor and Schaden Leadership Chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��. He was also recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his work to advance uncrewed aerial systems to increase our understanding of supercell thunderstorms that can spawn tornados.

However, Argrow’s path into aerospace engineering and research wasn’t always clear and set. He actually grew up wanting to be an astronomer and later wrote in his high school yearbook about plans to be a nuclear physicist before eventually taking courses in the new field of computer science during his first year at the University of Oklahoma. He said those early courses were exciting, but it wasn’t until he got onto campus and worked with an aerospace professor that he found and entered the field that would define his career and combine all of his interests.

A national merit scholar and co-valedictorian of his high school class, he said he came out of a small school where no one could really envision that sort of path for him.

“To be honest, they were more interested in where I was going to play football than what I was going to study when I got there,” he said. “And I think I would have been a good candidate for something like the GoldShirt Program we have here in the college now because I had never taken a math course above algebra at that point – that was all that was available to me even though I was a merit scholar and interested in these science fields.”

Argrow would go on to get all three of his degrees from OU, finishing his PhD in 1989 as a dual National Science Foundation and Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science (GEM) Fellow. Having both funding opportunities allowed him to stay in Oklahoma to take care of his family during grad school. And the GEM fellowship provided him with a key internship opportunity with the Aerospace Corporation in southern California, where he worked on projects related to Vandenberg Air Force Base’s development into a space launch complex. He said that was an incredible opportunity, but it also really confirmed his undergraduate preparation.

“I think I arrived there with some imposter syndrome because of who I was and where I was coming from. Most of the other students were from places like Stanford, but I quickly realized that the fundamentals of my education at Oklahoma had prepared me well, and I was more than able to hold my own – and more,” he said.

Argrow's path to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��

Argrow had many mentors in his career but said the time he spent with John E. Francis – an aerospace engineering professor at OU who went on to become Bradley University’s dean of engineering – was especially pivotal. He also noted that Howard Adams was another great mentor and responsible for getting Argrow into the GEM fellowship program, which was still new at the time.

Professor Brian Argrow talks with IRISS Lab Manager Michael Rhodes between deployments. Photo by Josh Rhoten, CEAS

“Howard was the executive director for that program, and he was one of the best speakers I had ever seen. He was so inspirational, and I loved to hear him speak when he came to campus,” Argrow said.

Argrow joined ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� in 1992. When he was hired, he was one of just three Black tenure-track professors in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. And between 2010 and the summer of 2021, he was the only Black tenure-track professor in the college. Coming out of a small, rural high school and attending OU, he said it was a familiar pattern, but something he has worked to change during his time as department chair and throughout his career.

He said events over the last two years in America have brought aspects of non-inclusion and discrimination to the forefront in ways that can no longer be easily denied or dismissed. He said that is true for STEM, academia and many other aspects of modern American life – but that for every push forward there will be a push back.

“You have to be realistic about the pace of change so that you don’t become too discouraged, and I think significant change in these areas will be measured in decades,” he said.

Argrow said within academia specifically, true change will come when reward structures such as tenure and pay are re-examined.

“Those are the kinds of spaces where we codify values. And you can’t deny that people tailor their behavior to be rewarded,” he said. “I think for years we have focused on the minority population regarding these issues. And what we should be doing is getting the majority population to invest in them in parallel and in a much deeper way. We can continue to talk, but we can’t depend on altruism to see significant change. The way you get it done is through encouraging behaviors through institutions if we really want to see equity in our field and in this country.”

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s Brian Argrow inducted into National Academy of Engineering for UAV severe storm research

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 15:44:00 +0000

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s Brian Argrow inducted into National Academy of Engineering for UAV severe storm research Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/18/2022 - 08:44

Jeff Zehnder

The National Academy of Engineering is recognizing Brian Argrow as a new member for 2022.

The distinction is one of the highest an engineer can receive in their career.

As a professor and chair of the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, Argrow has conducted major research to advance uncrewed aerial systems to increase our understanding of supercell thunderstorms that can spawn tornados.

“It’s an honor, and it highlights our entire team. I’m just one person, but our work in uncrewed aerial systems is a team effort. It’s an interdisciplinary research area, with additional faculty here, professors at other universities and students. I’m getting credit, but there are a lot of contributors,” Argrow said.

Argrow joined ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� in 1992 and was originally focused primarily on computational fluid dynamics, particularly for potential hypersonic vehicles. It is still an ongoing area for his research, but at the time, the field was quite small and the aerospace department leadership was eager to have more research in applied aerodynamics, particularly autonomous systems or drones.

Because he had a personal interest in meteorology from a childhood growing up in rural Oklahoma, where tornadoes are a fact of life, Argrow saw potential to use drones to study storms. He decided to branch out into the subject.

To begin his work in the area, Argrow needed a drone. Although quad copters are now widely available, drones were far harder to come by in 1994. He got in touch with a professor at his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma.

Argrow knew OU researchers had built a small fixed-wing drone, and he hoped to join in the research they were doing. Instead, he learned the drone had flown only a handful of times before the project was abandoned.

“We were able to bring it to ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� and tinkered around with it, but realized it wasn’t what we needed and we had to start from scratch,” Argrow said. “The culmination of that is we developed the capability of flying into supercells, which we continue to refine.”

The team’s work since then has been extraordinary.

They have developed multiple generations of UAVs and advanced the science of weather sensor technology. They also have special authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly higher and in areas other small aircraft are not allowed to go.

Typically, the team spends part of each spring out in the field, traveling across the Great Plains pursuing supercell storms.

Their most recent field campaign, the TORUS Project, was conducted in 2019. Work in 2020 and 2021 was halted by the pandemic, but he is hopeful to be out again this year.

“We’re getting as many sensors onto a small aircraft as possible to maximize every flight we make into a storm. We want to increase the data to get at what is the recipe to making a tornado in order to develop better warning systems,” Argrow said.

The data they capture will eventually be released publicly online so other scientists and engineers can study it. Although there are many researchers who are interested in analyzing tornadoes, none have the ability to collect field data from the air like Argrow’s team.

“We all stand on the shoulders of people who came before us. I didn’t invent calculus, Newton did. But I can use that knowledge,” Argrow said. “These data can help everyone.”

With gigabytes of information already collected on supercell storms, Argrow is hoping to expand his research into a related area: hail. His engineering team is part of a larger science team pursuing National Science Foundation funding for a project called ICECHIP that would use existing drones to study storms that produce hail.

“Many of those will also be supercells, not always. Like with our tornado work, it’s about learning the mechanism behind them. We want to develop more advanced warning, but if you know what forms them, maybe you can also prevent them,” Argrow said. “That’s kind of pie in the sky. It’s a ways off, and perhaps I won’t be here for that, but someone will.”

Argrow will be officially inducted into the NAE during the organization’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 2.

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Record breaking $50 million+ year for aerospace research at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 14:45:37 +0000

Record breaking $50 million+ year for aerospace research at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/26/2021 - 08:45

Jeff Zehnder

Chart Information

Year	Research Income	# of Research Awards
2021	$53,101,624	224
2020	$33,482,927	220
2019	$20,925,397	189
2018	$21,693,350	173
2017	$15,776,823	174
2016	$15,298,323	163
2015	$15,233,210	156
2014	$12,880,920	142
2013	$16,737,155	139
2012	$21,820,850	147
2011	$11,081,112	129

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder has had a record-breaking year for research funding, bringing in $53 million in awards.

The fiscal year 2021 number, which totals $53,101,624, blasts by the previous record of $33.2 million, set just one year ago in 2020.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� ranks in the top 5 percent of all U.S. schools in aerospace expenditures and in the top 10 percent for overall research, according to American Society for Engineering Education 2020 Profiles.

“We couldn’t be prouder of the work going on in Smead Aerospace,” said Massimo Ruzzene, Associate Dean for Research. “As a Tier 1 institution, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� is on the forefront of research in engineering, and the growth we’ve seen in aerospace demonstrates that.”

The department’s research revenue has more than tripled over the last five years. Aerospace Chair and Professor Brian Argrow credits additional investment in both traditional aerospace fields and a push into new areas. The department has ongoing work in astrodynamics, modeling and simulation, hypersonics, space life-sciences, and uncrewed aircraft systems (drones).

“The $10 million Ann Smead and Michael Byram gift in 2017, coupled with the campus investment in our new Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building are the accelerants enabling our faculty, staff, and student research teams to achieve new heights in research, of which dollars are but one measure, while reputation and competitiveness are others,” Argrow said.

U.S. News and World Report ranks Smead Aerospace as the #6 public undergraduate program and #7 public graduate program among all universities.

The FY 2021 awards includes 224 unique grants for research advancing frontiers across aviation and space, with grants coming from NASA, the National Science Foundation, private businesses, universities, and other organizations.

Header Photo: Students working with Professor Tim Minton.

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder has had a record-breaking year for research funding, bringing in $53 million in awards. The fiscal year 2021 number, which totals $53,101,624, blasts by the previous record of $33.2 million, set just one year ago in 2020...

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Lockheed Martin satellite mockup dedicated in Aerospace Building

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 22:27:27 +0000

Lockheed Martin satellite mockup dedicated in Aerospace Building Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/28/2021 - 16:27

Jeff Zehnder

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdPbV4PULJg]Watch a timelapse video of the satellite mockup's installation in late June.

Flickr Gallery of the Dedication Ceremony

A special 1/3 scale GPS IIIF satellite mockup built by Lockheed Martin has been dedicated in the University of Colorado Boulder Aerospace Building.

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� and Lockheed Martin officials held a ceremony Friday, Sept. 24 to mark the installation of the satellite, which is suspended from the 4th floor overlook of the Aerospace Building.

The formal program included:

Brian Argrow, Chair, Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Terri Fiez, Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation
Tonya Ladwig, Navigation Systems Mission Area Vice President, Lockheed Martin
Keith Molenaar, Interim Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science
Johnathon Caldwell, Business Innovation, Transformation and Enterprise Excellence Vice President, Lockheed Martin
Scott Thomas, Program Manager for GPSIII, Space Systems Command

Speakers at the event emphasized the importance of GPS technology for commercial, military, and civilian uses and stated their desire for the model to be an inspiration for students.

"The aviation, agriculture, construction and ride-share industries are dependent on GPS. If you used car navigation, made a bank transaction, or tracked your workout distance on a smart watch today – you used GPS. It is not really a question of if you used GPS today, instead ask yourself, how many times did you use GPS today," Ladwig said, in prepared remarks.

The full-sized GPS IIIF is the upgraded follow-on for the third-generation global positioning system satellite. Designed and built by Lockheed Martin, the GPS III first launched in 2018.

It is the most powerful GPS satellite created to date, with increased accuracy and anti-jamming capabilities. This new GPSIIIF is the follow-on design that incorporates a flexible technology architecture with a fully digital navigation system, accuracy-enhancing laser retroreflector array, regional military protection capability, and a search-and-rescue payload.

A special 1/3 scale GPS IIIF satellite mockup built by Lockheed Martin has been dedicated in the University of Colorado Boulder Aerospace Building. ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� and Lockheed Martin officials held a ceremony Friday, Sept. 24 to mark the installation of the satellite, which is...

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Brian Argrow News

Chasing hail: Researchers fly drones into storms as part of largest U.S. hail study in 40 years

Dark skies

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Flying into hail storms for weather forecasting research

Hail Field Day

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���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������'s Brian Argrow inducted into National Academy of Engineering for UAV severe storm research

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Record breaking $50 million+ year for aerospace research at ���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������

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Lockheed Martin satellite mockup dedicated in Aerospace Building

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� will share atmospheric science tech, expertise through new grant

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� honored for drone research

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��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s Brian Argrow inducted into National Academy of Engineering for UAV severe storm research

Record breaking $50 million+ year for aerospace research at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��