There’s no escape from Mother Nature. But, scientists strive to find ways to innovate and improve weather forecasts.

A University of Kentucky doctoral student and chemistry professor have measured environmental data during high-altitude, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights for the first time. This technique is able to reach a better understanding of meteorological conditions to enable the next generation of weather forecasting models.

Travis Schuyler is a doctoral candidate in the UK Department of Chemistry. He worked with Marcelo Guzman and built a system for fast sampling of temperature, pressure and humidity for the HiDRON glider, a high-altitude measurement platform developed by the earth observation company Stratodynamics Aviation Inc.

“It lets us understand the atmosphere in ways that have not been available to us,” Schuyler said.

Schuyler and Guzman’s project was in collaboration with a stage of HiDRON flight tests by UAVOS Inc. and Stratodynamics Aviation Inc. The companies successfully reached an altitude of 82,000 feet for the first time. The UK Team members have submitted their results to a peer reviewed publication.

“It gave us a lot of high density information that we can input into models that we can use for weather forecasting,” Schuyler said.

He is excited for what the future holds.

“I hope that other people see this and then they’re inspired by this to go into fields in science,” Schuyler said.