Observations of relative humidity in the near-wake of a wind turbine using an instrumented unmanned aerial system

Simulation, modeling, and limited observations have shown that wind farms have an impact on the

near-surface atmospheric boundary layer as turbulent wakes enhance vertical mixing of momentum,

heat, and moisture. The few observational datasets that do exist lack high spatial resolution due to their

use of a limited number of meteorological sensors or remote sensing techniques. This study utilizes an

instrumented small unmanned aerial system to gather high-resolution in situ field measurements in

order to differentially map near-wake changes to relative humidity. Observations show that downstream

relative humidity is differentially altered in the vertical, spanwise and downstream directions.