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UK Contracts Raytheon for Wind Turbine Effects on Radar Study

  • Dec 11, 2009

Raytheon Company has been awarded a contract by the United Kingdom's NATS, formerly National Air Traffic Services, to conduct software modeling and field trials of technology that minimizes the effects of wind turbines on radar signals.

"We are developing this much-needed technology with NATS to eliminate potential radar blackout zones near wind farms and enable the U.K. to continue its progress in developing safe, renewable energy resources," said Andy Zogg, Raytheon Network Centric Systems vice president of Command and Control Systems. "This contract award is a strong endorsement of our leap-ahead technology and will enable our customer to move forward with its greening of energy production."

Wind farm turbines create a Doppler effect as they rotate, creating a potential radar blackout zone. The Raytheon solution uses hardware and software to detect the turbines on radar systems, which eliminates interference with radar displays.

Under the $6.5 million contract, Raytheon will develop and test advanced mitigation algorithms within its S-band approach and L-band en route primary surveillance radars. Raytheon will also develop and test advanced post-processing tracking algorithms, along with a full PSR modeling and simulation capability that validates enhancements and serves as a tool for rapid development of future improvements.

System testing will take place in the U.K. and the Netherlands.

Comments

Tue, May 18, 2010 Radar Expert

Non-moving wind tubines are easily distinguishable by radar from moving targets if flying above the wind farms. Your statement is only true if an aircraft is flying very low (i.e through wind turbines in the still position)

Thu, Apr 29, 2010 Albert

The issue isn't so much with the turbine blades. A 2005 report from the Ministry of Defence showed a blackout zone around the farm even on calm days when the turbines were still. General aviation type craft (with small radar signature) were lost to the radar in this zone, regardless of altitude. The Doppler returns from the turning blades just created extra returns near the planes with larger radar signatures which were impossible to distinguish from actual aircraft.

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