Scribd
Upload
73 views

Radar System Engineering: Assignment No: 1

This document discusses radar systems used for airport surface detection and weather detection. It provides responses to 4 questions about different radar types: 1) Airport Surface Detection Equipment radar (ASDE) can detect objects as small as a person. 2) Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) detects birds, precipitation, and winds. 3) The number in a radar type defines its model. 4) TDWR is used at major US airports to detect wind shear and is geographically located in areas exposed to thunderstorms.

Uploaded by

Ramsha Jahangir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
73 views

Radar System Engineering: Assignment No: 1

This document discusses radar systems used for airport surface detection and weather detection. It provides responses to 4 questions about different radar types: 1) Airport Surface Detection Equipment radar (ASDE) can detect objects as small as a person. 2) Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) detects birds, precipitation, and winds. 3) The number in a radar type defines its model. 4) TDWR is used at major US airports to detect wind shear and is geographically located in areas exposed to thunderstorms.

Uploaded by

Ramsha Jahangir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

RADAR SYSTEM ENGINEERING

ASSIGNMENT NO: 1

SUBMITTED BY:
RAMSHA JAHANGIR KHAN
16-TE-100
SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR DR. RASHID SALEEM

DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATION ENGINEERING


UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,TAXILA
Questions:
1. Can an ASDE detect an object as small as a person?
Yes, ASDE can detect an object as small as a person. The ASDE-3 is a primary radar
system that provides air traffic controllers (ATCs) with a display of aircraft and vehicular
traffic, during all visibility conditions, superimposed on an airport map. It provides rapid
updates by scanning the entire airport surface once per second. The ASDE-3 employs
frequency agility in the Ku-band (15.7-17.7GHz) to mitigate the effects of weather on
the detection performance of the radar. The multiple PRF operation also allows the
radar to reject second time around returns as well as reduce the attenuation effects of
precipitation at the prescribed frequency bandwidth. The ASDE radar system
wavelength, pulse width and rotational rate were chosen to resolve aircraft that are
within 40 feet in range and 80 feet in azimuth of each other. This design results in a
high-resolution waveform (i.e., beam width of 0.25 degrees and a range resolution of
-18 feet) that also permits detection and display of human-sized targets. Thus, the
ASDE-3 system also has the potential to provide a similar level of surveillance for human
targets and this intelligence can be made available to security personnel without
interfering with Air Traffic Control (ATC) operations. [1]

2. What type of radar can detect birds?


A WSR-88D radar is used for detection of birds.
WSR-88D Radar:
The WSR-88D is one of the most powerful and advanced Weather Surveillance Doppler
Radar in the world. Since first being built and tested in 1988, it has been installed and
used operationally at over 160 locations across the United States, including Alaska and
Hawaii. The WSR-88D has also been installed in Puerto Rico and several islands in the
Pacific. The NWS Northern Indiana radar began warning operations on March 17th,
1998.

The WSR-88D is considered by many to be the most powerful radar in the world,
transmitting at 750,000 watts (an average light bulb is only 75 watts)! This power
enables a beam of energy generated by the radar to travel long distances, and detect
many kinds of weather phenomena. It also allows energy to continue past an initial
shower or thunderstorm near the radar, thus seeing additional storms farther away.
Many other radar systems do not have this kind of power, nor can they look at more
than one "slice" of the atmosphere. [2]
How WSR-88D radar detects birds:
A WSR-88D unit (hereafter radar) emits a pulse of electromagnetic radiation; the
antenna emitting and receiving this pulse is stationed at one of several angles of
elevation above the ground, so the energy gradually travels higher and higher above the
surface of the earth under typical conditions as it moves away from the radar. This is
important, so remember it for the next paragraph. As the radar scans, this beam of
pulsed energy moves away from the radar until something interferes with it – a target.
This target may be a bird, a rain drop, insects, or smoke particles – regardless, some of
the energy of the initial pulse bounces back to the radar, representing the relative
magnitude of the target/s scattering the return energy. When the radar receives this
return energy, the radar has a location of the target relative to the radar as well as a
degree of reflectivity in terms of how much scattered energy returns to the radar (base
reflectivity image). Additionally, radar provides information on the direction and speed
of target movements relative to the station itself (base velocity image). With these data,
we can say something about the magnitude, position, extent, and speed of the targets
detected on radar. [3]

3. What is significance of numbers in radar types?


The number defines the model of the radar for example ASDE-3 stands for Airport
Surface Detection Equipment, Model 3 radar. [4]

4. What are the applications and geographical locations of TDWR?


TDWR:
The Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) network is a Doppler weather radar
system operated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is used primarily
for the detection of hazardous wind shear conditions, precipitation, and winds aloft on
and near major airports situated in climates with great exposure to thunderstorms in
the United States. NCEI archives the products produced by the NWS Supplemental
Product Generator (SPG), called Level III, which are in the same data format as Next
Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) Level III. NCEI does not archive the base data
(called Level II). [5]
Applications and Geographical locations:
Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) is now providing fully automated Doppler
radar based detection of microbursts and gust fronts and 20 minute warning of wind
shifts which could affect runway usage at many of the nation's major airports. Current
work is underway to use the TDWR to reduce delays at major airports. The TDWR also
could be used to provide improved roadway information at many major metropolitan
areas. The use of C-band has permitted high spatial resolution beam patterns for clutter
suppression and storm feature resolution, but has led to some difficult challenges in
range/Doppler ambiguities. [6]
TDWRs were designed primarily to detect wind shear and microbursts near airports. In
order to detect small features like gust fronts, TDWRs operate at a lower elevation
scanning angle ranging of 0.1o to 0.3o compared to the fixed 0.5o lowest elevation scan
used in Weather Surveillance Radar- 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) radars. TDWRs also have
a narrower azimuthal beam width of 0.5o. This nearly doubles the resolving power
compared to the 0.9 of beam width used in the WSR-88D even though both radars have
the same size antenna (8.2 m diameter). Although signal attenuation for the CB and
TDWR (5 cm) is slightly greater than for the S-band (10 cm) WSR-88D radar in
precipitation, TDWR velocity data are largely unaffected. Recent work has shown the
advantages of using a narrower 0.5o beam width (compared to 0.9o) when sampling a
thunderstorm mesocyclone. Also, access to near-surface elevation scan angles (like
those from the TDWR) allows enhanced detection and monitoring of important severe
weather features (like tornadoes). To this end, NWS Headquarters (HQ) is working
closely with the FAA to incorporate TDWR radar data (and other FAA radars) into NWS
field offices. [7]

References

[1] A. S. Barry and J. Czechanski, "Ground surveillance radar for perimeter intrusion
detection," 19th DASC. 19th Digital Avionics Systems Conference. Proceedings (Cat.
No.00CH37126), Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2000, pp. 7B5/1-7B5/7 vol.2.

[2] US Department of Commerce, and Noaa. “About Our WSR 88-D Radar.” National
Weather Service, NOAA's National Weather Service, 23 Mar. 2015,
www.weather.gov/iwx/wsr_88d.

[3] eBird, Team. “Understanding Radar and Birds.” EBird, ebird.org/news/radar.

[4] “Airport Surface Surveillance Capability.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Sept.


2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_Surface_Surveillance_Capability.

[5] “Terminal Doppler Weather Radar - Supplemental Product Generator (TDWR-


SPG).” National Climatic Data Center, www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/radar-data/tdwr.

[6] J. E. Evans, "Applications of microwave radar to improving aviation safety and


efficiency," 1998 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest (Cat.
No.98CH36192), Baltimore, MD, USA, 1998, pp. 1935 vol.3-.

[7] 5.4 FORECAST USES OF TERMINAL DOPPLER WEATHER RADAR


(TDWR ... ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/47587.pdf.

You might also like