Image courtesy: Dong Energy
The concerns about air safety in proximity of wind farms are finally addressed. The SCANTER 4002 provides interturbine visibility and enables tracking of small air targets inside and around wind farms.
When wind turbines are grouped in large wind farms, they can have a significant effect on radars and specifically on radars used for aviation, as they are typically designed to show only moving objects and filter out anything stationary. The spinning blades of the wind turbines can appear on the radar screen as false "targets". The interference (or "clutter") generated by the turbines can desensitize the radar in the area of the wind farm, causing legitimate targets to disappear. This in turn can affect the deployment of wind farms, and several planned wind farms have been delayed significantly or even cancelled.
The SCANTER 4002 Transceiver is designed for detection and separation of small air targets and large surface targets like wind turbines. To achieve simultaneous good performance for air and surface detection, the SCANTER 4002 radar system is designed as a two-dimensional coherent X-band radar with pulse compression and advanced MTI processing, which provides enhanced detection of small air targets.
The high transmit power and receiver dynamic range (+110 dB) of the SCANTER 4002 combined with low range and antenna side lobes provide superior detection of small air targets, like e.g. general aviation aircraft and helicopters, without degraded sensitivity in and around the wind farm. High resolution CFAR processing enables target detection and tracking between turbines.
Utilizing state of the art processing technologies, the SCANTER 4002 enables efficient and cost-effective detection of even very small targets.
The instrumented range of the SCANTER 4002 air coverage is up to 90 NM and the radar system can be configured with different antenna systems, e.g. 15 ft, 18 ft or 21 ft, depending on the requirements.
The following video sequence shows primary radar video with track overlay of a small aircraft over the Horns Rev offshore wind farm in Denmark, using the Terma SCANTER 4002 Air Surveillance Radar. Tracking is based on primary radar video only - SSR data was not used during the test.