Since 1971, Enterprise Electronics Corporation has built
weather radar systems for meteorologists, both in the scientific
community and for the broadcast community. With the marked
improvements in signal processing capability, driven by
dramatic leaps in the computer industry over the past 15
years, EEC has developed tailored applications (hardware
and software) for the aviation community and hydrologists.
Aviation
EEC's aviation products include advanced algorithms used
to detect wind shear, microbursts, gust fronts, and low-level
wind shear phenomena. Aviation products are also used for
terminal and enroute weather forecasting and monitoring.
The fact that Doppler radar can detect hazardous windshear
is well known and has been proven in many field studies.
The EEC Airport Doppler Radar Information System (ADRIS)
is designed to detect hazardous windshear phenomena and
provide pilots, ground controllers and forecasters alike
with timely warnings and accurate
information
on windshear hazards for pilots. In addition, ADRIS provides
general weather monitoring features to aid in the efficient
management of terminal operations.
The automatic hazard detection algorithms are site-adaptable
to cope with differences
in weather around the world. The radar system used in ADRIS
is either a C-band or S-band DWSR Series of Doppler Weather
Radar as manufactured by EEC. The radar system, in the
most sophisticated version, is equipped with a specially
designed
low-sidelobe antenna and offers a modern signal processing
technique to reduce the effects of close-range ground clutter.
The
combination of modern radar hardware and a processing system
using field tested algorithms ensure that ADRIS will have
a very high probability of detection of even “dry microbursts”
and a very low false alarm rate. Automatic detection algorithms
also allow multi conditional warning criteria to be easily
constructed to minimize false alarms. In addition, a Low
Level Windshear Alert System (LOLA) can be integrated and
added to ADRIS as an option.
Hydrology
EEC offers several advanced hydrology-related algorithms,
including one for accumulated rainfall, subcatchment, and
flood prediction.
Additionally, rain-gauges may be used to input data into
the more advanced algorithms to produce a “ground-truth”
element to further refine the accuracy of the data.
The Gauge Product, designed to assimilate rain gauge data
into the EDGE™ accumulation products, allows rain gauge
locations (stated in range and azimuth from the radar)
to be incorporated into the radar data. A report may be
generated
showing the last complete accumulated rainfall from the
accumulation grids at each of these locations. If the rain
gauge entry system is in use, the actual gauge reports
from these locations are also printed along with the difference
between the actual and accumulated measurements.
The Rainfall Subcatchment Product is an area integration
of the Accumulated Rainfall product, used to estimate the
volume of precipitation falling in a prescribed geographic
area (such as a watershed). This product is updated each
time the 1-hour precipitation-accumulation product is completed.
The subcatchment areas are defined by vector coordinates
relative to the radar site.
The Flash Flood Alert System is a user-customized warning
product based on data output from the rainfall accumulation
and
subcatchment accumulation products. The user may define thresholds
of accumulation in an area and cause warnings to be issued
when thresholds are exceeded.
Meteorology
Hail and lightning have a serious impact on the general
public and especially on the agricultural community and
the power generation and transmission industries. Lightning
sensor networks are very effective for real time lightning
detection. However, forecasting of lightning hazard has,
until now, been difficult. While the precise mechanism
of electric charge separation in the atmosphere is not
known, there is much that is known about the characteristics
of lightning produced in storms. With the aid of automated
computer control and processing algorithms, the detection
of lightning-producing storms is achievable with the EEC
Doppler radar.
The new lightning
hazard warning system is an extension of existing techniques
demonstrated in research applications and is now ready
to be applied in operational systems.
Hail is also a dangerously destructive weather phenomenon
that has traditionally been difficult to predict with any
degree of accuracy. Doppler radar and modern processing
techniques, however, have made the task much easier and
more reliable.
Both hail and lightning detection utilizes algorithms
from a dual polarization Doppler radar. EEC offers Switched
or Enhanced Simultaneous Dual Polarization (Enhanced SidPol™).
SidPol™ is a patented EEC product.
Research laboratories in the U.S. and other countries
use Doppler weather radar for applications in atmospheric
physics and also meteorological research and EEC has proven
the advantages
of using Doppler
radar for the detection and tracking of hazardous weather
phenomena. EEC's first Polarization-Diversity Pulse Doppler
Radar was delivered in 1985 and it is used for the
study of cloud physics and hail detection analysis.
This unique radar system allows data such as precipitation
classification, precipitation intensity/distribution, droplet
spectrums, distribution of ice and water particles within
the cloud, wind fields, and turbulence factors to be collected
and analyzed with a high degree of space and time resolution.
This is particularly essential for the initialization and
proof of mesoscale and convective modeling.
The simultaneous observation of this data together
with a controlled overview of the entire mesoscale survey
range
is achieved with a radar system that possesses both Doppler
and variable-polarization capabilities.
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