Characterize ultrasonic sensing in fog, rain, and snow

Determine how fog, rainfall, and snowfall affect the measurement performance of the boot-mounted ultrasonic time-of-flight ski-edge-angle sensing system, and verify its reliability under these environmental conditions through field testing.

Background

The proposed system is intended for ski jumping across different seasons and may encounter fog, rain, and snow in addition to wind and changing humidity and temperature. Although related studies of sonar sensors in mobile robots and autonomous vehicles are cited, the paper states that the effects of these conditions have not been adequately examined specifically for ski jumping. The authors therefore identify field verification as unresolved.

References

Other environmental factors, such as fog, rainfall, and snowfall, may also affect system performance. While these effects have not been thoroughly studied in ski jumping, related work on sonar sensors in mobile robots and autonomous vehicles exists . Given the short operating range, significant signal degradation is unlikely but should be verified through field testing.

— Multi-Sensor Edge Angle Detection for Performance Analysis in Ski Jumping  (2608.17448 - Simeonov et al., 18 Aug 2026) in Section “Limitations & Future Work,” subsection “Environmental Influences on Sensing”