2015 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics

The Effective Retrieval of the Sounding Balloon

combined with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Pei-Yi Liu, Yu-Wen Huang, Chun Kuo,Yao-Hsin Chou
Dept. of Computer Science and Information Engineering
National Chi-Nan University
No.1 University Rd., Puli 54561, Taiwan
Email : yhchou@ncnu.edu.tw

A. Sounding Balloon

AbstractThe great debate over the Sounding Balloon Project

has fast become a hot topic around the world recently. This
project can acquire a number of photos from the edge of space,
and research the atmosphere which sustains human existence. It
is very important for weather forecasting and upper-air sounding.
However, due to the instability of the wind, we cannot forecast
the track of the balloon. No matter whether the equipment lands
in valleys, on roadways or the seas, retrieving the equipment
is full of challenges. In this paper, we propose a state-of-the-art
method which combines the sounding balloon with an Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle (UAV). On the one hand, the sounding balloon may
reach altitudes of 30 km. On the other hand, the UAV can achieve
autonomous ight. We combine the advantages of both, enabling
the sounding balloon to carry the equipment to high altitude, and
the UAV to deliver our payload to the designated location landing.
In our method, we use a self-developed App to control the UAV,
to record the sensor values through built-in sensors, to take the
photographs, and so on. This allows our project to proceed more
smoothly. According to our experiments, we achieve our aims of
safe and effective retrieval, he successful acquisition of lots of
photos and information from the high altitude, and an in depth
analysis. This integration of software and hardware opens up a
different application from that of the past and offers excellent
accomplishments.
Index TermsSounding Balloon; Unmanned Aerial Vehicle;
UAV; retrieval

The sounding balloon [2][3][4][5][6] is used as the ight

carrier to deliver a payload to a height of 30 km. Considering
high altitude balloons can eliminate regional limitations, more
scholars are devoted to this eld, enabling subjects such
as Aerospace, Atmospheric Chemistry and Hydrodynamics
to develop completely. Satellites, rockets and balloons are
currently primarily measurement aerial platform. Scientists use
these tools to research the atmosphere. In relation to the other
platforms, the sounding balloons with high mobility and short
mission cycle, it is the most suitable means for us to take
photos and measurements in the atmosphere up to 40 km. It
comprises several parts. To start with, the choice of balloon
type is related to the payload capacity and the highest altitude
that it could achieve. Next, the design of parachute must ensure
that it will work when the equipment falls. In addition, the
design this must consider the size of the payload and whether
or not pressure and temperature will affect the instruments
from working normally. Finally, designing a method to correctly assemble these parts is required, with consideration
as to whether the strength of the overall construction can
resist an environment with strong wind and airow. Another
requirement is reducing the rotation and shaking of the payload
to secure the performance of taking the photos.

I. I NTRODUCTION

B. Quadrotor

Flying in the sky has always been a human dream, so aerial

photography is a popular topic.
The Sounding Balloon Project, on the basis of the technology of aerial photography, employs a sounding balloon
to carry a camera to take photos of the earth from space.
There is a lot of relevant information on the website. Persons
having the same goal founded Global Space Balloon Challenge
(GSBC) [1] last year. GSBC involves the coming together
of people from around the world to simultaneously y high
altitude balloons from every corner of the globe, celebrating
an age where anyone can reach the edge of space for a few
hundred dollars and a few weekends of work. GSBC builds
a community where everyone can learn from each other and
build on each others accomplishments. We feature a balloon
combined with an UAV to solve the problem of retrieval. In
this paper, we discuss two important aspects, as follows.
978-1-4799-8697-2/15 $31.00 2015 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/SMC.2015.18

The UAV are usually used as Surveillance system for

air watch and data acquisition. The Quadrotor [7][8][9] is a
UAV which has a simple structure and which offers lots of
advantage such as low-cost, small size, full exibility and
a high degree of automation. Therefore, the Quadrotor has
been applied not only for military but also for civilian uses,
such as aerial photography. Owing to the change of Inertial
Measurement Unit (IMU), the Quadrotor has recently become
mature. Most IMUs had been mechanical in the past, so the
Quadrotor was too heavy to bear extra installations. However,
since electronic IMUs were developed, the Quadrotor has been
widely utilized in several areas. Because the battery technology
is also making good progress, the endurance of the UAV can
expect greater promotion. The Quadrotor is evolving rapidly
due to technological improvement.
26

We selected the most suitable type of sounding balloon,

manufactured a parachute, designed the payload which combined with the UAV, and designed an application which could
automatically send commands to the UAV, and accomplished
the goal of effective and safe retrieval. In addition, we also
designed another application that could dynamically update
the ight information for easily retrieving the payload. See
the general ow chart of process system (see Figure 1):

Lately, more researchers have been working on the Quadrotor research project. A researcher at the University of Texas
at Arlington developed a Quadrotor which can automatically
loiter in the sky; The University of Tasmania and the Australian
Antarctic Division used the Quadrotor to monitor the moss
in the Antarctic. The Pixhawk used an algorithm to achieve
automatic ight control, which was exploited by the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The frontiers of the
Quadrotor knowledge are being expanded as time goes on.
Currently, sounding or UAV projects are popular elds.
However, it is unheard-of for anyone to combine both. For
one thing, the UAV is limited by ight height and ight
time, while the sounding balloon can y to an altitude of 2030 km, without considering ight time. For another, with a
sounding balloon, it is difcult to control the ight route, while
the UAV can control the ight direction. Through skillfully
combining both, we can send ight commands to the UAV
by smart phone to make it y to a safe location landing.
While maintaining the safety of the surrounding area, we can
achieve the goal of effective retrieval. The sounding project has
become increasingly popular in recent years; there is related
information on the Internet which even provides predictions
where the balloon will land. However, due to strong wind and
air ow, even if we have landing predictors, the error range
may still be as high as 10 km. In comparison with the West
which mostly comprises wide expanses of at land, Taiwan
is a small island with swift rivers and signicant differences
of altitude due to steep mountains. Moreover, Taiwan has a
well-developed transportation network. No matter whether the
equipment lands on railways, valleys or seas, retrieving the
equipment is difcult to implement. As a result, we combine
the sounding balloon with the UAV, and control the UAV by
phone. The properties of the UAV let it y to designated
and safe location landings with the equipment in its payload.
Despite Taiwan being a mountainous country surrounded by
sea, our project is not a dream.

Yes

Turn On
UAV
Altitude

Start
Balloon
Inflation

UAV
Take Off
Retrieve
Payload

Yes

Turn On
Application

Fig. 1.

Separate
Parachute

Separate
Balloon

Check
Equipment

Launch

No

Designated
Altitude

No

Data
Analyze
End

Monitor

Flow chart - Launch equipment system

We implemented our project by the following steps:

A. Data Collecting and Compaction
We gathered a large amount of information from relevant
teams, and analyzed their operation process. There were two
important parts we needed to probe: Sounding Balloon and
the UAV. Through data collecting and compaction, we could
obtain much knowledge about this eld, and determine what
kinds of skill we need to learn.
B. Main materials for project
The main materials for this project were sounding balloon,
payload, parachute, the UAV which could make us effectively
and safely retrieving, and smartphone with self-developed
applications. Table I shows the weights of materials.

II. P ROJECT OVERVIEW

The Sounding Balloon Project has recently become a hot
topic around the world; it uses a camera carried aloft by
balloon to achieve Near Space Photography. Our project is
different from others as it combines a balloon with the UAV
to achieve the goal of safe and effective retrieval. Due to
the instability of winds, we cannot forecast the track of the
balloon. Moreover, Taiwan is surrounded by the sea and has
numerous precipitous mountains, so retrieving the payload is
challenging. This project combines the advantages of both:
we can retrieve our payload even in rugged topography. In
addition, we use self-developed applications to take photos,
get built-in sensor values and automatically send commands
to the UAV via Bluetooth, so that the UAV can enjoy a safe,
perfect land, and solve the problem of retrieval.

TABLE I
THE WEIGHT OF MATERIALS

III. R ESEARCH P ROCESS

The primary idea of this project is combining a balloon with
the UAV to achieve the goal of safe and effective retrieval.

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Material

Weight

Sounding Balloon
Parachute
UAV
Battery (UAV)
Payload
Smart phone
Arduino Uno
GoPro

852 g
270 g
1480 g
376 g
83 g
189 g
40 g
88 g

Total weight

3378 g

slowing the velocity. We attached multiple chords to fasten it

to a harness to maintain sufcient equilibrium. The parachute
could effectively slow down the equipment. This permitted the
equipment to landing more safely. The UAV could also turn
in a more stable manner, ying more safely.
4) UAV: We combined the sounding balloon with the UAV,
to achieve the goal of effective retrieval. The choice of the UAV
was also essential. Its weight, ight time, payload capacity and
so on, would all inuence the result. The hardware of the UAV
(see Table II):

1) Sounding balloon: Because the net lifting forces of

different balloons are not the same at all, we needed to choose
a balloon whose net lifting force was greater than the weight of
our payload and prepare enough helium to inate the balloon.
The buoyancy (B) of the balloon is given below:
B = (air He ) V

(1)

where air and He are the density of the air and helium,
respectively. V is the volume.
When the buoyancy is greater than the weight, it can carry
the equipment off the ground. We could choose the best
balloon according to this function (1).
2) Payload: Since the weight of the payload would inuence the endurance of the UAV, we chose lighter Styrofoam
as our payload. Because we had to resist the strong wind
in the troposphere, we needed a sophisticated design for our
payload. According to the calculation of the weights, we
chose the appropriate position of the goods. This offered the
payload equilibrium, and used Velcro to make it more solid.
Additionally, we put the camera at the bottom of the payload
so as to broaden the eld of vision. Furthermore, we used
the mobile power packs in order to increase the period of the
experiments. Figure 2 shows conguration of the payload:
Mobile power
pack
p

TABLE II
THE HARDWARE OF THE UAV

Material

Specs

Battery capacity
Battery size
Battery weight
Hardware
Firmware
GPS
Ground station
Remote control

44S 14.8V 10,000 mAh 10C

16.7cm x 6.5cm x 3.5cm
376g
Pixhawk v2.4.5
ArduCopter3.2
3DR u-blox GPS compass
3DR Radio v2
FlySky FS-TH9X with
FrSky telemetry module
APC Propeller 11x4.7 SF (4)
APC Propeller 11x4.7 SFP (4)
800g
1.43g
12 minutes

Propellerl
Payload Capacity
Weight
Fight Time

GoPro

The method in this project was controlling the UAV by

smartphone in the payload at high altitude. For reasons of the
development of the application, we chose a ground station
with open source. This made us research code in depth,
improve the code and program the applications according to
our requirements so that we could carry out this project more
effectively and safely.

Velcro

Smartphone
Fig. 2.

C. The development on Arduino

Mobile
l power pack

Our equipment contained Arduino Uno to communicate

with the autopilot rmware of the UAV, and a smartphone
for uploading the data and sending ight commands. We
acquired the PWM signal which the remote control sent to the
autopilot rmware. We knew about the pulse width through an
oscilloscope(see Figure 3).

The conguration of the payload

3) Parachute: Due to gravity, the equipment fell rapidly

after the balloon burst. We needed to make a parachute to
slow the rate of descent; the size of umbrella-area could be a
decisive factor for its efcacy. Therefore, we had to calculate
it precisely. The drag force (FD ) is given as:
1
air 2 Cd A
2

2mg
=
air ACd

FD =

(2)

(3)

where is terminal velocity; Cd is the drag coefcient; A

is the effective cross sectional area of the parachute; m is the
mass of the falling object; g is the acceleration due to gravity.
After operating, we could choose the best size of the area,
and then cut it to an octagon shape for better effect in best

Fig. 3.

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The oscilloscope

and the most essential location, letting us know where it

was; the pressure could convert to match the altitude in a
comparison with GPS. We could understand the impact of
altitude on atmospheric pressure; the current humidity and
temperature in the atmosphere could let us better understand
the environment and the atmosphere which changed with the
height. With the current state of the network, we could detect
what kind of 2G, 3G and 4G mobile networks we used, to
know the maximum signal transmission range; the gyroscope
and accelerometer measured the degree of current equipment
rotating and movement. Along with altitude, we could know
the current situation, i.e. whether or not the equipment had
dropped. After calculating, it controlled the UAV ight to
the chosen landing location; through the quantity of electric
charge and temperature of the battery, we could know the
situation of the phone operating. If the quantity of electric
charge of the phone was too low, it could automatically shut
down unnecessary functions. The sensor values all returned
to server through the Internet, while saving the data into the
database via the phone. In this way, we could analyze the data
after the experiment.
In addition, we also programmed the function of automatically sending the message by phone, and returning the
most important GPS information to the user. Furthermore, we
designed a mechanism whereby the phone connected with the
AP of xed SSID; it would automatically ring. This way, it
could inform the experimenter to enable us to retrieve the
equipment more conveniently.
2) Ground station: We could dynamically obtain the latest
information from the current database through the data which
the application of high altitude station uploaded. It was more
convenient and immediate for users to know the ight information. In addition, the application showed its position and
users position, to increase the probability of retrieving the
equipment. Moreover, we used the technology of streaming
video to allow users to experience looking down from a height.
Figure 5 is the interface of ground station:

We programmed a code that was a simulated pulse on

Arduino instead of the remote control. No matter what mode,
such as unlock, accelerator, or ight mode, they were all done
through simulating signals. As long as the UAV could be
controlled by the remote control, we could simulate all. We
communicated with Arduino through APP to control the UAV.
Besides, the motor was driven by Arduino, so that the
separating could be carried out smoothly. With this APP, the
equipment could separate from the balloon and parachute at
the designated altitude, turning on the UAV, to achieve the goal
of safe and effective retrieval.
D. The design of the application
For the sake of conforming to our project goals, the selfdeveloped application was divided into two parts: one was
high altitude station, which ascended with the equipment,
controlled the UAV and retrieved the photos and information.
The other was the ground station, which made it easy for
the experimenter to access the ight information immediately.
Figure 4 shows the conguration system:
Take pictures
Monitor
Auto Flight

S
Separate
Unlock
Land

Smart Phone

Arduino

Overall
Cloud Server
Streaming Video
Where is the UAV
User
Smart Phone

Fig. 4.

Ring

Overall conguration

1) High altitude station: The functions of this application

include controlling the UAV, the equipment to separate the
balloon from the equipment and deploy theparachute. On the
one hand, we would use the App to detect the altitude during
our experience, communicate with the program on Arduino
through Bluethooth, and then send the ight commands to
the UAV to separate from the balloon at the desired default
altitude. At the designated altitude, it would separate from
the parachute and turn on the UAV. In addition, it could
dynamically choose a nearby safe landing location according
to its current position. When the UAV ys, the application
continually detects its quantity of electric charge. When the
quantity of electric charge is below the warning value, the
application would send the ight command to the UAV to land.
This could avoid the UAV crashing and harming surroundings
due to a dead battery.
On the other hand, this application continually collects
various information and photos from high altitude. In comparison with the other groups, we made good use of the
sensors in the smartphone, including GPS, pressure, humidity,
temperature, and so on. GPS recorded the highest altitude

(a)

Fig. 5.

29

(b)

The interface of ground station

the feasibility of our project, we carried out kinds of different

experiment in sequence.

E. Checking equipment
We needed to check if our application could be executed
during the experiment, take pictures and get sensor values at
every designated time. Most of all, we had to make sure that
the application could send commands to the UAV, order it to
y automatically, and land in a safe area. In addition, due
to high temperatures application work might lead to battery
degradation. When the temperature is above 45C during work,
it would degrade the application performance. Thus, we needed
to monitor the temperature of the battery in order to ensure
applications were working properly.
We also had to measure the weight of our equipment, the
buoyancy of balloon and check the efcacy of parachute before
the formal experiment.
After checking all of these elements, we needed some thin
strong cord to assemble the balloon, parachute, payload and
the UAV. We also applied some hooks to attach one thing to
another more rmly and made sure that all cords were strong
enough to support our equipment. The following gure is the
overview of the system:

A. Separate from the balloon and parachute

First, we needed to test the separating device. The design
was very simple (see Figure 7), we just turned on the motor
to achieve our target. We used our application to send the
command to the Arduino Uno, and ordered the motor to
turn on. The goal of this experiment was to ensure the
feasibility of separating the equipment, testing whether the
balloon carried the equipment to the default altitude and our
device could automatically separate from the balloon. During
the period of falling, we also could test the efcacy of our
parachute, and checked the altitude when it separated from the
parachute, testing whether it could separate from the balloon
and parachute successfully by demand. Thus, the UAV could
y more freely without the balloon and parachute.
Arduino Uno

Soun
Sounding
Balloon(Each)
Packing Material Helium
Pack
Wei
Weight 852 g
Payload Capacity 1220 g
Payl
Diam
Diameter 162 cm

Separating device

Bluethooth

Battery
B
atttery

UAV
Weight 14800 g
Flight Time 12 min
pacity 450 g
Payload Capacity

Parachu
Parachute
Weight 270
2 g
Surface Area 35947

Separating
S
eparating d
device
evice

Battery

P
Payload
W
Weight 898 g
C
Contains: Phone,
Arduino, GoPro 4,
A
M
Mobile power pack
Fig. 6.

Fig. 7.

Overview of the system

The separating device

B. Using App to control the UAV

After nishing the initial experiment, we started to check
the performance of the UAV. The self-developed App could
detect the altitude automatically, and the program on Arduino
also automatically communicated with the smartphone through
Bluetooth, and then sent the ight commands to the UAV,
achieving our mission. The goal of this experiment was to
ensure that the UAV could automatically turn on and adjust
the angular velocity of every motor, even the ight mode of
the UAV. First, we used remote control to order the UAV, then
programmed a code that was a simulated pulse on Arduino
instead of the remote control. Besides, we also could send
the ight plan to the UAV by our APP, and set up the ight
route of the UAV in advance. During this experiment, we could
observe the information form the ground station (see Figure
8), and check the difference between both.
After automatically testing ying, we used the smartphone
to send commands to the UAV, letting it automatically nd
the nearest safe location landing. We set nine landing points
in the range of 4km2 , and observed whether the UAV carried
our payload to the nearest safe location landing.

Finally, we chose the most appropriate time and launching

location according to the Central Weather Bureau and survey,
respectively. Afterwards, we waited for the UAV carrying
the equipment to the safe location landing, so that we could
retrieve the equipment to analyze the data.
IV. R ESEARCH M ETHOD
We combined the sounding balloon with a UAV to solve the
retrieval problem. First, we used the sounding balloon to carry
our equipment to the default altitude. Second, the equipment
used a particular device to separate from the sounding balloon.
Third, when it fell to the designated altitude, the equipment
turned on the UAV and separated from the parachute. Finally,
it automatically chose the appropriate safe location, falling by
APP, so that we could retrieve the equipment without a hitch.
After we arranged all the information from the other teams,
compared their pros and cons with each team, picked the brains
of those who had had some experiences in doing the job, and
designed the best plan for this project; then we validated our
ideas through lots of experiments. For the sake of proving

30

VI. C ONCLUSION A ND F UTURE W ORK

Fig. 8.

In this paper, we proposed a novel method which combined

the sounding balloon with an UAV; it was a good way to
solve the problem of retrieval. In one respect, the sounding
balloon may reach high altitudes. In other respect, the UAV
can achieve autonomous ight. We combined the advantages
of both, letting the sounding balloon carry the equipment to
a high altitude, and allowing the UAV to deliver our payload
to the designated location landing. In this way, we achieve the
goal of safe and effective retrieval.
In the future, we expect to carry the payload to 30 km
in altitude, and use each image taken from every experiment
to design a particular website. This platform will be like a
high altitude scenic overlook; every user can walk into this
dream park to appreciate the scenes from various altitudes, as
if you were a falcon spreading your wings and ying in the
sky, feasting your eye on the beautiful scenes; you will never
fail to be moved by the beauty of the sight. If the dream is a
dormant bud, I believe that it will begin to bloom after we put
more effort into realizing our dream.

Ground Station

C. The nal experiment

However, after respective tests were successful, we needed
to carry out the entire experiment, the time and the location
were very important for launching, we must select a sunny
weather and an open space to launch our device. We would
put the cellphone into the payload, and the balloon carried
the UAV, parachute and payload off the ground. Afterward we
waited for the UAV which carried our payload and landed on
the safety. After we retrieved our payload by the records of the
GPS sensor, we analyzed all information which we got from
this nal experiment.
V. E XPERIMENT R ESULT
Combining the sounding balloon with the UAV is the main
feature of this project. The experimental results dovetail nicely
with our expectations. The smartphone in the payload detected
the altitude during the whole experiment, the records from the
GPS sensor (see Figure 9) showed that the balloon broke away
from the device when it achieved the appointed altitude, and
then opened the parachute to slow the rate of descent. When
the device descended to the default altitude, the application
automatically sent the command, the parachute separated from
the device, and then signaled the UAV to bring our payload
to a safe area. Due to the application of the ground station,
we retrieved our payload successfully, and got a signicant
amount of information and pictures from our experiments.

Fig. 9.

Fig. 10.

The photo from experiment

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The records from the GPS sensor

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