We have been building a Mach 0.5 recirculating wind tunnel for, believe it or not …
10 (!!) years … there were various challenges and setbacks, but lots of students contributed to this and the tunnel finally turned on today! See the turn on video at https://youtu.be/m5LAk-bmYgU
The sonic anemometer successfully flew from New Zealand to Argentina on a NASA/CSBF stratospheric balloon, and is back on the ground! System has been recovered successfully. Waiting for this to return to Tufts so we can pull all the data off!
The Tufts Sonic Anemometer launched from New Zealand on a NASA/CSBF heavy lift stratospheric balloon! It will travel across the Pacific gathering stratospheric wind data. You can see the flight data returned from our onboard system at https://ultrasonic-anemometer.onrender.com
The NASA/CSBF team has recovered the Antarctica balloon! We received the shipment back at Tufts June and are starting to look at the data. It looks like we successfully recorded about 9 to 10 days of wind data in the stratosphere over Antarctica!!
Very pleased to announce that Souleymane Cissokho is joining our research group for the Spring semester 2025! Souley joins after completing his undergraduate degree at Rose Hulman and with experience in acoustic signal processing from Idaho National Labs. Very glad to have him on board! He will be working on acoustic sensing technologies.
Tufts University School of Engineering is headed to the stratosphere once again on a high altitude balloon! A successful launch of the 2024 Salter Test Flight – Universities from McMurdoStation, Antarctica, occurred on Dec 21 2024. Many thanks to NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Balloon Programs Office and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, particular Christopher D. Yoder and Don Banfield, for the opportunity. The balloon carries, among other payloads, the SPARROW-6 experiment part of which is the Tufts Sonic Anemometer from my research group at Tufts University (Tufts University Department of Mechanical Engineering). The flight is expected to float in the stratosphere near 125,000 feet for 5 to 10 days. After recovery we will have a wealth of data on stratospheric winds! Sure hope my code is running correctly!!! Safe travels!
Video of the launch: https://lnkd.in/e_a664Z3
Live tracking site: https://lnkd.in/eGQWAu4B
Our JTech paper on the 2022 New Mexico high altitude balloon flight has published! Great job to lead author Tim Cheng!
Tim J. Cheng, Chris Yoder, Tara Curran, Freidlay Steve, Don Banfield, and Robert D. White, “Test Flight of a Stratospheric Sonic Anemometer Prototype” Journal of Atmospheric and Ocean Technology, published online October 17, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-24-0010.1
A podcast describing some of our work on the Mars Sonic Anemometer (and Tufts High Altitude Sonic Anemometer) is now live! Thanks very much to AIP Publishing and the Acoustical Society of America for taking the time to produce this and helping spread the word on the Mars Sonic. Many thanks to co-authors Don Banfield and Ian Neeson particularly, and to NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration for funding and supporting this work.
Across Acoustics, “Ultrasound Transducers for Measuring Martian Wind Speeds” ASA Publications Office Podcast, Robert White and Kat Setzer, August 26, 2024. https://lnkd.in/gvtDcC-m
After many years of effort, our JASA paper on ultrasound transducer characterization for the Mars Sonic Anemometer has published! Very excited to see this finally go to press.
Robert D. White, Rishabh Chaudhary, Zijia Zhao, Luisa Chiesa, Ian Neeson, and Don Banfield “Modeling and characterization of gas coupled ultrasonic transducers at low pressures and temperatures and implications for sonic anemometry on Mars” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 156, pp 968-988, (2024). https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0028008
RIshabh and Prof. White traveled to Las Vegas for the AIAA Aviation Forum and presented two papers.
Rishabh Chaudhary, Robert D. White, Zarina Kosherbayeva, Donald Banfield, Anthony Colaprete, Ian Neeson, Andrew Powell and Andi G. Petculescu. “Ultrasonic Measurement of Helium Abundance in Hydrogen for Planetary Science,” AIAA 2024-3851. AIAA AVIATION FORUM AND ASCEND 2024, July 2024. https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2024-3851
Robert D. White, Rishabh Chaudhary, Tim J. Cheng, Benjamin Fisher, Julia Huckaby, Donald Banfield, et al. “Flow Testing of a Digital Sonic Anemometer for Martian and Stratospheric Environments,” AIAA 2024-3933. AIAA AVIATION FORUM AND ASCEND 2024, July 2024. https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2024-3933
