Wind Farms Interfere With Surveillance - so says Booz Hamilton

BOOZ ALLEN’S PHYSICS-BASED MODELING, SIMULATION, AND ANALYSIS EFFORTS TO QUANTIFY THE IMPACT OF WIND FARMS ON DOMESTIC RADAR

As municipalities across America seek alternatives to traditional energy production, wind farms are becoming an increasingly common sight. A wind farm can consist of more than a thousand individual towers, each with massive rotating blades used to capture wind energy to feed a growing appetite for electricity.

These expansive wind farms can negatively impact domestic air traffic control radar and military test and training range radar, impeding their ability to track targets near turbines. Prior to construction, the impact of turbines on a region’s civil and military radar must be considered.

Military test and training ranges as well as civil air operations are concerned about how renewable energy technologies may impact aircrew training, airborne radio frequency (RF) system components, and flight safety. With deep modeling and radar analysis capabilities, Booz Allen’s experts are exploring wind turbine technical impacts, specifically those associated with RF sensor systems.http://www.boozallen.com/consulting/view-our-work/48383297/wind-energy-impact-on-air-survelliance-radar

Creating a High-Fidelity Radar Simulation Environment

Booz Allen has developed a high-fidelity, signal-based model—called WindTRx—that allows wind farm developers, civil, and military stakeholders to look at the same data, understand the impacts of specific turbine placement, and make adjustments early in the planning phase with assurances of the final impact on local radar.