Description
The EEC Radar Wind Shear System (RWSS) is designed specifically to detect hazardous weather events, including windshear, and provide air traffic controllers and forecasters with accurate information and timely warnings that can be distributed to pilots and airport management. Accurate information is vital to proper management and decision making in hazardous conditions. RWSS provides general weather monitoring to aid in the general management of the airport terminal and the surrounding area. Of primary importance are the automatic detection algorithms that are site adaptable to account for seasonal and geographic differences in weather around the world. RWSS is capable of automatic generation of warnings concerning detection of hazardous events, removing the need for constant human monitoring of the weather in the airport area.
Air terminal operations and safety are affected by phenomena other than microbursts and windshear that can be forecast, detected, and measured by Doppler weather radar. For example:
· Severe weather warnings for thunderstorms or hail storms
· Gust fronts or wind shifts that affect flight patterns
· Rain or snow start/stop forecasting
· Lightning hazard potential
· In-route weather monitoring
· Precipitation monitoring
The RWSS design incorporates a complete suite of hardware and software elements to fully implement all the capabilities required for airport weather forecasting. The radar system is the state-of-the-art EEC Defender X200 Dual Polarization Doppler Weather Surveillance Radar, EEC D-series pedestal with 2.4 meter low sidelobe antenna and a sandwich foam core radome specifically tuned for operation in the X-Band frequency range. The DEFENDER X200 is designed to rigid specifications for phase noise to ensure maximum clutter rejection and overall performance.
