Definition
Operation approval (weather modification operation approval) refers to the application, review, approval, and execution supervision process of weather modification operations such as artificial rain enhancement, hail prevention, and fog dispersion. Operational units must submit their operation plans in advance (including time, area, and type of operation), and implementation can proceed only after approval by meteorological authorities and air traffic control departments. The positions, status, and operational parameters of operation vehicles, rocket launchers, anti-hail cannons, and other equipment must be reported in real time to ensure airspace safety and operational compliance.
Operation approval involves airspace coordination, ammunition management, and assessment of operational effectiveness. IoT SIM cards provide mobile network connections for operation vehicles and launch devices, ensuring real-time data transmission in the field and remote areas.
Technical Features
The operation approval system is associated with sounding data, radar data, and meteorological station data to support the selection of operation timing and areas. Operation vehicles are equipped with GPS and onboard terminals to report their location and operation parameters (launch elevation angle, azimuth, number of shells, etc.) in real time. It interfaces with the airspace management system to achieve linkage between operation planning and airspace approval.
Use Cases
Operation approval is widely applied in artificial weather modification scenarios such as cloud seeding, hail suppression, fog dissipation, and forest fire prevention. Operation vehicles and launch devices upload GPS positioning and operation parameters in real time to the supervision platform via IoT SIM cards. SimtoLink provides stable connectivity and dedicated APN for the meteorological operation supervision system, ensuring the approval process and operation safety.
How the approval window constrains field parameters
The IoT SIM in an operation approval carries whether this job is still inside the space and time that were approved. The filing states the time, the area, and the operation type. Only after air traffic control and the weather service approve it should the terminal on the vehicle bind elevation, azimuth, rounds used, and live position to that approval number and report them. Being able to reach the network is not permission to operate. Every field parameter must point back to a permit that has not expired. The site must fall in the approved area, the current time must fall in the window, and the ammunition and launcher must already be registered. Position heartbeats outside the window may continue for safety monitoring, but they must not be booked as valid work quantity. A sounding profile can help choose the window. It does not replace the approval itself.
Remote roads often have only cellular. The terminal should keep the approval number and the window start and end locally. If the link drops, record the parameters on the vehicle first and backfill them at the operation time after recovery. Do not create a new operation at the backfill time. Elevation, azimuth, and round count are parts of one launch. Missing any one of them, the record is incomplete. Reporting only "fired," with no direction and no round count, leaves the supervisor unable to tell whether the shot left the approved airspace.
Work quantity still reported after the airspace closes
A common mistake is that, after the approval expires or is closed temporarily, the terminal still books later launches under the same number. The SIM is still attached, the platform looks continuous, and the airspace permit has already ended. At the window cutoff the terminal should stop accumulating work quantity. Later messages should be marked as outside the window, even if the crew is still on site packing up. Another mistake is several vehicles sharing one approval number without distinguishing sub-sites. Their round counts add up on one area, while the actual firing sector has already left the approved range.
Position jumps can also write a legal operation as an excursion. If a single jumped point in the hills is used directly to decide "inside the area," one spike raises a violation. Require a run of consistent points, not one point. Clock sync matters the same way: if the vehicle clock is a few minutes slow, the last launches before the window ends are booked after the window. For acceptance, move the approval end into the test window and confirm that launch parameters after the end no longer count toward that number. Backfilled data must keep the field time, not the server time.
Launches after the window do not count toward the approval
Move the test approval's end earlier. Elevation, azimuth, and round count after the cutoff may remain in the field safety log, but they must not be added to that approval's work quantity. If rounds after the cutoff still add into the same number, the terminal is watching only whether the SIM is online, not the window. When several vehicles share one approval, each record needs the vehicle and the launch point. Do not add several vehicles' rounds into one total with no position. A single point that jumps outside the area should not be judged an excursion immediately. Record it only after consecutive points agree.
Check vehicle clock error against a known window boundary: a launch one minute before the boundary must fall inside the window, and a launch after the boundary must fall outside. Backfill must not change those times to server time. If the airspace is closed temporarily, work quantity still sitting in the queue must be relabeled as outside the window. It must not be stored under the original number when the link returns. Then the work quantity a supervisor sees matches the permit that was in force at the time.