92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Monday, 23 January 2012
An Adaptive Pedestal Control Algorithm for the National Weather Radar Testbed Phased Array Radar
Hall E (New Orleans Convention Center )
David Priegnitz, CIMMS/Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK; and S. M. Torres and P. L. Heinselman
Manuscript (1.5 MB)

Poster PDF (2.6 MB)

The National Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT) Phased Array Radar (PAR), located in Norman Oklahoma, consists of a single antenna array capable of electronically scanning a 90 degree azimuthal sector at any given moment. The antenna is mounted on a pedestal which can be commanded to move in any azimuthal direction allowing researchers to follow areas of interesting weather. Until now, when tracking a weather feature, an operator had to decide when and where to move the pedestal in order to keep the feature in the field of view, which imposed a significant operational burden. This paper describes an adaptive algorithm that uses reflectivity data to track an operator-defined weather feature and automatically adjusts the pedestal position to optimally keep it in the field of view.

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