Abstract:
The stratosphere is the layer of the atmosphere extending upwards about 50 km from the tropopause. The vertical stability of the atmosphere in the stratosphere is relatively high, and the vertical motion is relatively weak, primarily dominated by large-scale horizontal motion. Additionally, there is less dust in the stratosphere, the atmosphere is more transparent, and the content of water vapour is lower, so there are fewer phase transitions of water vapour. Moreover, given the large distance between the stratosphere and the ground, it is unaffected by complex underlying surface effects, and concurrently, there are fewer aircraft in this area, ensuring no interference by other aircraft. Precisely because of the peculiarity of the stratospheric atmospheric environment, its applications in the fields of high-resolution real-time reconnaissance and surveillance, missile early warning, navigation and positioning, rapid communication reconstruction, atmospheric environment monitoring, disaster prevention and mitigation, homeland security surveillance and defense, and anti-terrorism are considerable. This potential has attracted widespread attention globally. This paper proposes a detection system predicated on in-situ detection of stratospheric atmospheric wind field undertaken by a stratospheric aircraft, extensively introducing its working principle, computation formula, and wind tunnel test results. In the laboratory test, the theoretical measurement error value of the detection system is ≤2.5 m/s. In the wind tunnel test at room temperature, the system has illustrated exemplary working performance, system stability, and measurement accuracy. The correlation between wind direction and wind speed exceeds 0.99, the average absolute deviation of wind speed is 0.67 m/s, and the absolute average deviation of wind direction is 2.4°. In 2022, the Meteorological Observation Centre of the China Meteorological Administration equipped a stratospheric overpressure balloon to conduct an in-situ detection test in the stratosphere atmosphere at an altitude of 19 km, determining the wind speed and direction around the platform, and proceeding with a detailed analysis of the detection results. The comparison with the platform trajectory calculation results indicates that the system has good consistency; the comparison with the NCEP_FNL reanalysis data discloses a good correlation of east-west wind speed, reaching 0.795, while the correlation of north-south wind speed is relatively poor, only 0.33. The test results affirm that the detection system mounted on the stratospheric aircraft can effectively detect the stratospheric atmospheric wind field, and possesses vast application potential in areas such atmosphere environment planning, flight route planning, and regional stay.