Quality Management for Radar Products On-Site in the DWD-Radar Network

The products of a Weatherradar-Network undergo several qualitychecks and -procedures before they are used. Here is described, what qualitymanagement is done in the German Weatherservice (Deutscher Wetterdienst=DWD) before the products leave the site and are distributed in the DWD-Data-Distribution-System. The DWD operates a network of 16 C-Band-Weatherradarsystems. The operation, data-processing and product-transmission is completely automated. The products are sent  to numerous users with sometimes quite different requirements. Because such a multi-purpose radarnetwork cannot satisfy all user-wishes, there must be an agreement between the users and the operation-facility what is done with the systems and what not. These agreements give measures for QM. The DWD uses various methods to guarantee that the right products are generated in the right way and delivered within a maximum time after raw-data-reception.

1. A process, that gives the optimum operationmode of the network The way the radars are run can be set by numerous Variables of the software, used softwaremodules, technical adjustments and modifikations. There is a group of experts (users and technicians) who make suggestions for changes in the operationmode due to new requirements, new developments, etc. Then authorized people decide whether the operationmode is changed or not. If changes have to be done, there are testing- and acceptance-procedures to ensure, that realisation corresponds to the decisions.

2. Maintenance The radar-hardware maintenance has to guarantee, that all systems in the network have an optimum absolute calibration.  At monthly preventive services among other things the antenna performance and the receiver-calibration. At yearly services a complete calibration of all waveguides is done and the parameters of all filters are checked.

3. Extended automated self-control of the systems A proper operation of the radarsystems is given when all hardwareparameters are within their limits, all used softwareparameters are right, all softwaremodules run and the products leave the site well in time. In the DWD an automated self-control of the systems was implemented and is improved continuously. The TEMONRA-System (TEchnical-MONitoring-RAdar) consists of daemons on the radarsystems, that gather information, an evaluation-softwarepackage and a HTML-based visualisation. The daemons take radarinformation from the BITE-System (Built-In-Test-Equipment), pull the used softwareparameters out of the shared memory, gather information from operating-system-level and generate every 15 Minutes a configuration-product. This KF-Product is sent via the standard DWD-AFD-System (Automated-File-Distribution) to a central server. Here the evaluation software compares the incoming data with reference-values. The results are presented as HTML-Documents, where all values are given and the result of the comparison is color-coded from red to green. For a network-overview the results are grouped and displayed in small tables on a map of Germany. The KF-Products can be archived like normal products. So for any off-line data-processing it is always well known with what parameters the products were generated.