Raytheon Awarded Contract To Study Radar Blackout Zones Caused By Spinning Turbines

Raytheon Company has been awarded a contract by the United Kingdom's NATS, formerly National Air Traffic Services, to conduct software modeling and field trials of technology that minimizes the effects of wind turbines on radar signals.

"We are developing this much-needed technology with NATS to eliminate potential radar blackout zones near wind farms and enable the U.K. to continue its progress in developing safe, renewable energy resources," said Andy Zogg, Raytheon Network Centric Systems vice president of Command and Control Systems. "This contract award is a strong endorsement of our leap-ahead technology and will enable our customer to move forward with its greening of energy production."

Wind farm turbines create a Doppler effect as they rotate, creating a potential radar blackout zone. The Raytheon solution uses hardware and software to detect the turbines on radar systems, which eliminates interference with radar displays.

Under the $6.5 million contract, Raytheon will develop and test advanced mitigation algorithms within its S-band approach and L-band en route primary surveillance radars. Raytheon will also develop and test advanced post-processing tracking algorithms, along with a full PSR modeling and simulation capability that validates enhancements and serves as a tool for rapid development of future improvements.

System testing will take place in the U.K. and the Netherlands.

FMI: www.raytheon.com