Detailed Observations of Wind Turbine Clutter with Scanning Weather Radars

Abstract The wind power industry has seen tremendous growth over the past decade and with it has come the need for clutter mitigation techniques for nearby radar systems. Wind turbines can impart upon these radars a unique type of interference that is not removed with conventional clutter-filtering methods. Time series data from Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) stations near wind farms were collected and spectral analysis was used to investigate the detailed characteristics of wind turbine clutter. Techniques to mask wind turbine clutter were developed that utilize multiquadric interpolation in two and three dimensions and can be applied to both the spectral moments and spectral components. In an effort to improve performance, a nowcasting algorithm was incorporated into the interpolation scheme via a least mean squares criterion. The masking techniques described in this paper will be shown to reduce the impact of wind turbine clutter on weather radar systems at the expense of spatial res...

[1]  R. L. Hardy.  Multiquadric equations of topography and other irregular surfaces , 1971 .

[2]  R. Rinehart,et al.  Three-dimensional storm motion detection by conventional weather radar , 1978, Nature.

[3]  R. Franke.  Scattered data interpolation: tests of some methods , 1982 .

[4]  D. Zrnic,et al.  Doppler Radar and Weather Observations , 1984 .

[5]  S. W. Troxel,et al.  Automated gust front detection using knowledge-based signal processing , 1993, The Record of the 1993 IEEE National Radar Conference.

[6]  Wendell A. Nuss,et al.  Use of Multiquadric Interpolation for Meteorological Objective Analysis , 1994 .

[7]  S. L. Barnes.  Comments on “Use of Multiquadric Interpolation for Meteorological Objective Analysis” , 1995 .

[8]  Paul S. Fisher,et al.  Image quality measures and their performance , 1995, IEEE Trans. Commun..

[9]  Arthur Witt,et al.  The Storm Cell Identification and Tracking Algorithm: An Enhanced WSR-88D Algorithm , 1998 .

[10]  Shmuel Rippa,et al.  An algorithm for selecting a good value for the parameter c in radial basis function interpolation , 1999, Adv. Comput. Math..

[11]  A. D. Siggia,et al.  Gaussian model adaptive processing (GMAP) for improved ground clutter cancellation and moment calculation , 2004 .

[12]  THE EFFECTS OF WIND TURBINE FARMS ON ATC RADAR , 2005 .

[13]  WEATHER RADARS AND WIND FARMS - WORKING TOGETHER FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT , 2007 .

[14]  A. Biss,et al.  Wind Farm Clutter Mitigation in Air Surveillance Radar , 2007, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

[15]  J. Perry,et al.  Wind Farm Clutter Mitigation in Air Surveillance Radar , 2007, 2007 IEEE Radar Conference.

[16]  Donna Heimiller,et al.  Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, and Performance Trends: 2006 , 2008 .