Wind Profiler Signal & Data

Processing

-Anil Anant Kulkarni

SAMEER, IIT Campus,Powai Mumbai 400076
anilakulkarni@hotmail.com
Wind Profiler Signal & Data Processing
• Background
• Signal Processing Steps
• Data Analysis Step
• Data QA/QC
Wind Profiler : Basics…..
• Clear Air Doppler Radar
• Detects Reflection from Turbulence and
eddies
• Typical frequencies used in wind profiling
– 45-65 MHz
– 404-482 MHz
– 915-924 MHz
– 1280-1357.5 MHz
Wind Profiler Basics ….
• Electromagnetic pulse is sent into the Atmosphere
• Detection of the signal backscattered from
refractive index in-homogeneities in the
atmosphere
• In clear air the scattering targets are the
temperature and humidity fluctuations produced
by turbulent eddies
• Scale is about half of the wavelength for the
transmitted radiation (the Bragg Condition)
Wind Profiler : Back Scatter Signals
Wind Profiler : Scattering Mechanism
• Scattering from atmospheric targets:
– irregularities in the refractive index of the air
– hydrometeors, particularly wet ones (rain, melting snow,
water coated ice)
• Scattering from Non-atmospheric targets:
– birds and insects (frequency dependant)
– smoke plumes
• Interfering signals:
– Ground and sea clutter
– Aircraft and migrating birds
– RFI (depends on frequency band)
Wind Profiler : Scattering Mechanism
When a pulse encounters a target...
It is scattered in all directions.

Of interest is the signal component

received back at the radar.
This signal is typically much weaker
than the original sent from the
transmitter and is called the "return
signal".

The larger the target, the stronger

the scattered signal.
Wind Profiler : Scattering Mechanism
• Refractive index fluctuations are carried out
by the wind; are used as tracers
• Irregularities exist in a size range of a few
centimeters to many meters
• Different methods of wind measurement used
with numerous variations:
– SA (Spaced Antenna)
– DBS (Doppler Beam Swinging)
• Doppler shift in the backscattered signal is
used to derive the wind speed and direction
as function of height
Doppler Beam Swinging (DBS)
• DBS method for wind vector
calculations (u,v,w)
• Radial velocities measured with
one vertical and 2 off-zenith
beams
• Beam-pointing sequence is
repeated every 1-5 minutes
• Electronic beam pointing with
phase shifters using one
antenna
• Local horizontal uniformity
• of the wind field is assumed
 Doppler Shift
• Doppler Formula:
• fd = - 2 *Vr / 
• Doppler Measurement of wind speed
based on the Doppler shift in the received
signal:
– where Vr is the radial velocity of the scatterers
• Examples of Wind Profiler Doppler shift
(radial velocity 10m/s)
– 50MHz, wavelength 6m, Doppler shift 3.34Hz
– 449MHz, wavelength 0.66815m, Doppler shift
29.9Hz
– 1290MHz, wavelength 0.23m, Doppler shift
WP Signal Processing Steps
Time
Domain Spectral
Rx I/Ps
Processing Domain
(1.0) Processing
(2.0)

Doppler
Wind Profile
Profiles Analysis (3.0)
 DSP System : Data Flow Diagram

Radar Control PC Post Processor PC

Power Spectra
+ Moments

PCI DSP Front End PCI

Power Spectra DSP Card(1)
Card(2) + Moments

Power Spectra
I & Q I/P
Time Domain Signal Processing…….

• ADC Sampling
• Coherent Integration
– Affects data rate, Nyquist frequency, SNR
• 8 bit Decoding
– Improving the Range Resolution
• Fourier Transform
– Broadens spectral features
• Power Spectral Computation.
Moments of the Average Doppler
Spectral Domain Processing……

• Spectral Averaging
– Reduces data rate,improves detectability
• Estimation of Noise Level
• Identification of Doppler Signals
– Maximum Peak
• Construction of Doppler Profile
• Computation of Moments and SNR
Basic
Signal
Processing
Steps
Doppler Profile Analysis:
• The Doppler profiles from three beam directions from lower heights
and higher heights are available as inputs
• To analyse input data to generate the 6 minute and hourly wind
profiles.
• In this process the input Doppler profiles are subjected extensive
quality assurance checks before generating the 6 minute and hourly
wind profiles.
 Separation of Precipitation echoes
 Mode Merging
  Calculation of Radial velocity and height (6 min)
  Computation of Absolute Wind Velocity Vectors (UVW)
  Quality Assurance of sub-hourly velocity profiles
  Computation of Horizontal Wind Speed & direction (6 min)
  Computation of Hourly Averages
 Basic Issues in Signal Processing….
Signal Detection
– Discrimination between signal and noise. (Hildebrand/Sekhon)
– Are one or more non-noise signals present in spectrum?

Signal Identification Signal Identification

– If more than one signal is detected, which one is due to the (clear
(clear-air) atmospheric return? air) atmospheric return?
– What kind of What kind of a-priori information priori information can be
used to select it?
– Can unwanted contamination be effectively filtered out without affecting
(biasing) the desired
Identification of Doppler Peaks…

• Basic Assumptions….

– There exist temporal and spatial continuities in a

time series of spectral profiles which can which
can be be employed.

– Echoes back-scattered from the atmosphere

exhibit continuity in time and height that can
restrict the search of restrict the search of signal
peaks to a certain part of the spectrum.
Identification of Doppler Peaks…

• Multiple Peak Identifications….

– Identify maximum 5 Spectral Peaks in each
range bin
– Mark spectral peaks which are below the
noise level threshold
– Compute three Moments for remaining
spectral peaks.
– Build the spectral chain across different
range bins using wind shear criteria
Doppler Peak Identification continued..

• Challenges …
– Identification of Atmospheric Targets but
not the Clear Air echoes
– Precipitation echoes
– Identification Interference Signal
– Identification of Clutter
– Identification of Non-Atmospheric Targets
– Birds, Planes, non-stationary objects from near by
buildings , roads (from Radar Side lobes)
Interferences….
• Interference from migrating birds:
– Birds act as large radar targets so that signals from birds overwhelm the
weaker atmospheric signals This can produce biases in the wind speed
and direction
• Precipitation interference:
– During precipitation, the profiler measures the fall speed of rain
drops
• Ground clutter:
– Ground clutter occurs when a transmitted signal is reflected off of
objects such as trees, power lines, or buildings instead of the
atmosphere. Data contaminated by ground clutter can be
detected as a wind shift or a decrease in wind speed at affected
altitudes.
• RF Interference:
– The RF Interference signals looks similar to the CAT echoes and some
times are inseparable
Power Spectra : Vertical Beam with Precipitation echoes
Power Spectra : North Beam with Precipitation echoes

During precipitation, the

profiler measures the
fall speed of rain drops
Power Spectra : East Beam with Precipitation echoes
Power Spectra Higher Heights
Power Spectra: Lower Heights
 QA/ QC of Data
• Definition:
– The process of identifying and if possible
eliminating inconsistent observations
(outliers)
• Outliers:
– Data that are spatially, temporally, or
physically inconsistent.
Recent development in QA/QC
• Coherent Integration
– Wavelet pre-processing / No coherent integration / Low-pass filter
• Windowed FFT :
– No windowing for long time series.
• Spectral Averaging
– Statistical Averaging Method (SAM-ICRA)
• Signal Identification
– Multi-Peak Picking (MPP) / ETL Signal Processing System (SPS)
/NCAR Improved Moments Algorithm (NIMA)
• Wind finding
– NCAR Winds and Confidence Algorithm (NWCA)
– ETL Signal Processing System (SPS)
– Weber/Wuertz (QC)