Since the beginning of summer in 2023, as the highest temperature in many places has exceeded historical extremes, artificial rainfall has gradually been put on the agenda by various places. In the subdivision of weather modification operations, the application and development of drones is entering the fast lane.
In June, at Ganzhou Airport in Zhangye, Gansu, a "two-tailed scorpion A" rain-increasing drone took off and flew to the nearby airspace to carry out the Qilian Mountain terrain cloud artificial rain enhancement operation. The "Wing Loong-2" rain-increasing UAV and the "Xinzhou 60" rain-increasing aircraft followed closely behind, and carried out multi-aircraft joint operations in different airspace as planned.
"Two-tailed Scorpion A" rain-increasing drone
This operation is a scene of the delegation observation activity of the National Weather Modification Work Site Association, and it is also part of the regular ecological restoration artificial rain (snow) enhancement operation in the Qilian Mountain area.
In recent years, weather modification operations represented by artificial rain (snow) have continuously played an active and important role in coping with natural disasters such as drought, abnormal high temperature, and forest and grassland fire risk. At the same time, traditional rain-increasing operations such as aircraft, rockets, anti-aircraft artillery and smoke stoves are limited by their own coverage, meteorological conditions, operating costs and other factors, and constantly expose their own limitations.
"Wing Loong-2" rain-increasing drone
As a new operation mode, the unmanned aerial vehicle system is equipped with an airborne spreading system, which can directly enter the cloud to spread operations, which has the advantages of high flight altitude, good maneuverability, long operation time, strong ability to deal with complex weather, low safety risk, high execution efficiency, real-time transmission of airborne data, etc., which can effectively solve a series of problems such as high cost of traditional artificial rain (snow) operation, many safety restrictions in operation time and space, single operation means, and insufficient three-dimensional operation mode.
"Xinzhou 60" rain-increasing aircraft
Continental's use of drones for artificial rain enhancement experiments dates back to 2017. Zhongtian Rocket Company of the Four Institutes of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation used drones for the first time to successfully carry out artificial rain enhancement operations. This is the first time in China that drones are used to enter the cloud to spread precipitation under complex weather conditions. The success of this test kicked off the widespread use of drone technology in weather modification operations.
In March 2019, in order to solve the problem of ecological restoration in the Qilian Mountains, Gansu Province explored the launch of large-scale UAV weather modification operations. By January 2021, the mainland's first large-scale weather modification drone "Ganlin-I" successfully flew from Jinchuan Airport in Jinchang City, Gansu Province, promoting the demonstration application of large-scale UAV rain (snow) enhancement work nationwide.
Large weather modification drone "Ganlin-I"
In terms of disaster prevention and mitigation, drone rain enhancement operations are also playing an active role. Since August 2022, Guizhou has experienced severe summer, autumn and winter drought, and the average precipitation in the province is 57% less than the same period of the year. Although more than 3,000 artificial rain enhancement operations have been carried out through manned rain-increasing aircraft, ground operations, anti-aircraft artillery, rockets, etc., effectively alleviating the agricultural drought in most counties (districts), the reservoir water storage in most areas is still seriously insufficient.
In March this year, the Weather Modification Center of the China Meteorological Administration and the Guizhou Meteorological Bureau jointly carried out the UAV Guizhou rain enhancement drought resistance and large-scale UAV artificial rain enhancement technology experiment, in order to alleviate the local drought, explore the artificial rain enhancement operation mode of manned aircraft and UAV coordination, in order to make full use of the characteristics of UAV and manned rain enhancement aircraft, carry out dual-aircraft coordinated rain enhancement operations, and further do a good job in spring plowing and spring sowing meteorological guarantee services.
The use of drones for artificial rain (snow) can improve the accuracy of weather modification operations, improve the efficiency of weather modification cloud water utilization, and play an active role in meteorological support services such as disaster prevention, mitigation and relief, which has become an industry consensus. With the continuous iterative upgrading of technology, the application prospects of UAVs in various fields, including weather modification operations, will be more extensive.
During the 2022 International Security and Emergency Expo, UAV products and technical solutions of well-known enterprises in the industry, including Xinxing Jihua Group, Huawei Emergency Army, and Chengdu Zongheng Dapeng, received widespread attention. The 2023 China International Emergency Management Exhibition, which will kick off in Beijing in November this year, continues to pay attention to the drone industry and bring you more cutting-edge and advanced product and service information. (Written by/Xue Mingxin)