Insect monitoring radar: remote and network operation

A network of two remote Insect Monitoring Radars (IMRs) connected to a base-laboratory node computer has been operating in inland eastern Australia since late 1999. The IMRs, which incorporate ancillary meteorological observing equipment, operate automatically under the control of a microcomputer that both acquires the data and analyses it. The microcomputer is linked to the node computer via a modem and a connection to the public telephone network. This link is used both to retrieve observation data and to carry out remote servicing and fault diagnosis. An automatic system has been developed to analyse the radar and meteorological data and to generate daily statistical summaries and graphical representations of the activity observed by the radar during the previous night. The summaries and graphs show the intensity, altitude, speed, and displacement direction of the migrations, the orientation, size, and wingbeat frequencies of the migrants, and the surface weather conditions, at each site. These summaries are downloaded to the node computer and incorporated automatically into standard World Wide Web (WWW) pages, which are normally available to users by early afternoon of the following day. The network is being used in studies of the spatial ecology of mobile insect populations and of the utility of migration-monitoring information for operational pest forecasting. The methods developed to operate the radars over the network, and to make the observations available to users promptly and in a readily accessible and interpretable form, are described. Some examples of the information products generated are presented.