MUSAS Projects

The ground and air vehicles that make up the MUSAS instrumentation fleet have been used in many previous field deployments in the past decade. Below are several of the NSF-funded field campaigns on which we have collaborated. We have also participated in projects funded by NASA, the Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research, and NOAA, among others.

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Previous NSF-funded Research

Sponsor: National Science Foundation, Award

Period of Performance: 09/01/2024 - 08/31/2028Ìý

Principal Investigator: , Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc.

This two-year field campaign was designed to close critical observational knowledge gaps in hail research by exploiting an almost entirely mobile observational fleet to ensure opportunistic sampling of convection wherever it occurs.This two-year field campaign was designed to close critical observational knowledge gaps in hail research by exploiting an almost entirely mobile observational fleet to ensure opportunistic sampling of convection wherever it occurs.

Sponsor: National Science Foundation, Award AGS

Period of Performance: 04/01/2024 - 03/31/2027

Principal Investigator: , Central Michigan University

This Ìýcampaign was designed to develop the most thorough understanding to date of warm season boundary layer thermodynamic and kinematic structure due to inland advection of the marine atmospheric boundary layer in the Great Lakes coastal environment.

Sponsor: National Science Foundation, Award AGS

Period of Performance: 05/01/2023 - 04/30/2026

Principal Investigator: , University of Nebraska - Lincoln

TORUS-LItE provided a focused, single-field-season follow-on to TORUS that targets data collection using a subset of TORUS assets focused on the supercell left-flank. Ìý

Sponsor: National Science Foundation, Award AGS

Period of Performance: 07/01/2019 - 06/30/2023

Principal Investigator: , University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire

Ths "Wisconsin's Dynamic Influence on Shoreline Circulations on Ozone" (WiscoDISCO) campaign targeted poor air quality days impacted by lake breeze circulations. ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ's RAAVEN teamed up with a DJI Quadcopter crewed by Purdue University to make observations of a shoreline environment impacted by a shallow marine layer, where vertical mixing and pollutant transport are key to understanding pollution events at the surface.

Sponsor: National Science Foundation, Award AGS

Period of Performance: 09/01/2018 - 02/28/2023

Principal Investigator: , University of Nebraska - Lincoln

TORUS was a collaborative research project funded by the NSF and NOAA to advance understanding of supercells. TORUS involved more than 200 scientists and engineers who led data collection on 46 supercell thunderstorms across three field seasons.

Previous Funded Research (Other Sponsors)

Sponsor: National Aeronautics & Space Administration, 80NSSC24K1260

Period of Performance: 07/01/2024 - 06/30/2026

Principal Investigator: , Georgia Institute of Technology

In this collaboration, the RAAVEN is equipped with an autofluorescence nephelometer (AFN) built by Droplet Measurement Technologies. The sensor, designed to measure the size and composition of the aerosols in Venus's atmosphere, is tested by flying it through the volcanic fog of Kilauea volcano, located in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Sponsor: Department of Energy Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program (DE-SC0021381)

Period of Performance: 09/15/2020 - 09/14/2025

Principal Investigator: , ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ. TRACER PI, .

To better understand the drivers of convective storms in the greater Houston (Texas, USA) area, the US Department of Energy and research partners conducted the Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment () project during 2021-2022. As part of this supporting effort, the CU RAAVEN was equipped to make measurements of atmospheric thermodynamic state, winds and turbulence, and aerosol size distribution.

Sponsor: NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory

Period of Performance: 01/01/2020 - 03/31/2020

Principal Investigator: , ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ

ATOMIC was the U.S. complement to the European field campaign called . This collaborative effort involved a unique combination of ships, piloted and remotely-controlled aircraft, and remotely-controlled ocean vehicles to characterize ocean and atmospheric properties. The IRISS team deployed the RAAVEN to gather nearly 80 hours of data at elevations up to 1km to sample the near-shore environment upwind of Barbados.