Oklahoma schools share $6M award to develop weather drones

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) – The University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University and two other schools have been awarded $6 million from the National Science Foundation for developing unmanned aircraft systems that improve weather forecasting.

The foundation announced the four-year grants Friday for the schools. The money will also be shared by the partner universities of Nebraska and Kentucky.

The project’s goal is developing small, affordable systems for governments, scientists and private companies to better understand atmospheric conditions and improve weather forecasting. The unmanned systems are commonly referred to as drones.

Meteorologists currently rely primarily on radar and ground-based instruments that are unable to collect necessary data in the atmosphere to build better forecasting models.