We have created pages describing how to build your own Paparazzi-based meteorological research aircraft SUMO in the Wiki.

John Cassano from the University of Colorado used the SUMOs on the Pegasus runway near the US Station McMurdo in Antarctica.

Tim Pritlove discussed the Paparazzi project with me in CRE187 (in German).

Our SUMO UAVs were flown at the Finnish Aboa station in Antarctica by the Finnish Meteorological Institute to collect atmospheric data. See their press release.

We tested adaptive control loops that were developed with ENAC and filmed it.

One third of the right wing of a Multiplex Twinstar gets dropped and the right engine is turned off. And the plane keeps flying.

The wing was dropped with a special mechanism made of three servos, one pulling and two pushing.

Together with the Laboratory for Energy Conversion of the ETH Zürich we have adapted their air flow probe to Paparazzi and integrated it into our meteo Funjets. It is used to measure wind vectors/turbulences around wind turbines for a more efficient planning of wind parks. The goal is to understand the impact that a turbine causes to the ones downstream.

Swiss television has an article (in German).

We flew in the Arctic on Svalbard with the Geophysical Institute of the University of Bergen/Norway.

An on-board video of a vertical climb to 1500m during sunset in Adventalen/Spitzbergen was recorded.

An overall of 91 flights were done in two weeks and we did simultaneous flights with two aircraft over land and sea.

The scientists from the Geophysical Institute Bergen/Norway flew our Funjets to collect environmental data in the Barents Sea around Spitzbergen, 1300km away from the North Pole.

They took off and landed on the helicopter deck of the icebreaking coast guard vessel KV Svalbard. They got some Paparazzi training before the expedition and operated the UAV on their own, only by the help of a RC safety pilot. They flew in altitudes up to 1500m with ground air temperature of about -20°C and windspeed up to 15m/s.

We gave a talk at the 24C3 congress in Berlin and presented the Paparazzi project. Two autonomous aircraft flying near Toulouse, France and Hildesheim, Germany were controlled from the big screen in the auditorium in Berlin.

The trajectory was modified in flight, telemetry and live on-board video data was shown. There were teams launching and supervising the aircraft locally. There is an SPIEGEL Online article (in German).

We are back from the Icelandic Highlands. It is a harsh environment for both humans and airplanes. The IR sensors performed pretty well and we collected a lot of meteo data for the Flohof campaign in the area around the Hofsjökull glacier.

With the help of the Icelandic ATC we set a new Paparazzi altitude record.