ANUMA AEROSPACE CORPORATION — Department of Commerce SBIR Phase I: 9.1

Description

Anuma Aerospace seeks to develop the conceptual design for, and determine the technical and economic feasibility of, a Persistently-Elevated, Gas-free, Aerostatic Sensor Utility System (PEGASUS), which will work like a data buoy in the sky, continuously collecting and transmitting weather data from the marine atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) with the data being made available via application programming interface (API) on the (internet) cloud. We believe this may be accomplished by using Anuma Aerospace’s patent pending, Partial-Vacuum Lift (PVL) cell as the aerostatic lift component with onboard photovoltaic equipment and batteries to provide power to onboard systems, including weather data sensors, communications equipment, vacuum pump for buoyancy control, and a semi-autonomous control system. The main technical advantages of the PVL cell are the ability to vary aerostatic lift and therefore altitude by varying the internal pressure, the ability to maintain long-term persistence, and the elimination of expensive, non-renewable helium lifting gas. PEGASUS is intended to remain aloft indefinitely with the semi-autonomous control system navigating winds and air currents to remain within pre-defined geofence boundaries.