Software Upgrades for the NWRT Phased-Array Radar

A timeline of improvements

NWRT PAR block diagram.

 

The deployment of the new signal processing hardware in 2007 marked the beginning of a series of software and signal processing upgrades on the NWRT PAR. Using a path of continuous upgrades with an average of two software releases every year (Spring and Fall), we have been gradually incorporating new and improved functionality to the NWRT PAR.

The following is a timeline of the upgrades, where only the highlights for each release are listed. Despite its critical nature, much of the infrastrucutre work is not listed here because it is usually transparent to operators and/or consumers of NWRT PAR data.

 

Spring 2014

Multifunction

• Aircraft detection and tracking algorithms that are robust in the presence of weather and ground clutter
• Adaptive scheduling of weather and aviation functions using interlaced scans
• Integrated radar data displays that show both aircraft and weather information

Adaptive weather scanning

• Adaptive vertical sampling of storms based on their range
• Radial-by-radial pulse-repetition-time adjustment based on range of storms
• Adaptive definition of focused weather scans (ADAPTS) based on range of storms

Signal processing and software infrastructure

• On-line measurement of the range correlation to improve performance of range oversampling techniques
• Development of Staggered Pulse Repetition Time processing mode (non-operational)
• Significant improvements to the radar user interface to control and monitor the performance of new and existing algorithms
• Low-latency time-series data-distribution infrastructure to accommodate weather and aviation function processing

Spring 2013

• A new storm-region (cluster) identification algorithm
• Automatic time-based scheduling of storm regions
• ADAPTS III: scheduling and processing of a detection scan for faster updates with timely detection of newly formed storms
• RTC improvements to reduce initial range of collection and to allow frequent PRT switching
• RCI client improvements to control and monitor system and algorithms
• DSP improvements for ground-clutter and range-and-velocity ambiguity mitigation
• Software infrastructure improvements to prevent data drops

Fall 2012

• ADAPTS with surveillance and adaptive spatial sampling [conference paper]
• Auto PRT algorithm
• Time and round-robin scheduling of scanning strategies through the user interface
• On-demand, standardized level-I data format (HDF-5)
• Standardized level-II data format (XML)
• Improvements to the noise-power estimator [conference paper]
• Improvements to the status monitoring through the user interface
• Long-pulse transmission and processing

Spring 2012

• Improved ADAPTS rules and thresholds [conference paper]
• Enhancements to the adaptive pedestal control algorithm [conference paper]
• Velocity display through the user interface
• Improved ground-clutter residue censoring thresholds
• Velocity dealiasing in WDSS-II

Fall 2011

• Adaptive pedestal control algorithm
• Reflectivity display through the user interface
• Surveillance function for ADAPTS and surveillance processing mode
• Improved noise-power calibration
• Level-I data recording using HDF-5 format
• Additional metadata on archived level-I data, which will facility playback of archived data with original processing settings

Spring 2011

• Storm-based automatic scanning strategy adjustments, which allow users to input storm position and motion information to adjust coverage
• Improvements to CLEAN-AP, including the addition of a clutter model
• Improvements to range oversampling

Fall 2010

• Scan processing functionality in the DSP cluster (non operational), which provides infrastructure for adaptive scanning and schedule-based scanning

Spring 2010

• Adaptive scanning using ADAPTS II (removes scanning strategy limitations of first implementation)
• Range oversampling with adaptive pseudowhitening (resulted in scanning strategies with 50% update times) [journal paper]
• Manual real-time scan control through the user interface
• Manual scheduling of scanning strategies through the user interface

Fall 2009

• Range oversampling and pseudowhitening (for engineering testing only)
• Improved noise-power calibration [conference paper]

Spring 2009

• Strong-point clutter filtering
• Data quality control using coherency-based censoring [conference paper]
• Adaptive scanning using ADAPTS [conference paper]

Fall 2008

• Ground clutter filtering using the CLEAN-AP filter
• Staggered PRT processing (not operational due to PRT-switching limitations)
• Interference suppression
• Noise-power calibration
• DC-bias calibration

Spring 2008

• Range unfolding using batch-PRT waveforms
• Matched filtering
• Data quality control using the signal-to-noise ratio

 

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