Mitigate the wind farm impact on radar systems

Enabling the wind of change safely

The wind is changing in the energy industry, and is doing so fast. Nations across the world are taking important steps to transition into renewable energies, seeking to cut emissions and, over the long term, curb global warming. In this context, the implementation of wind farms – whether offshore or onshore – has emerged, over the past decade, as one of the key elements to facilitate this transition.

Yet what may constitute a solution to one problem may, in fact, become a problem in a different context: the development of windfarms across the world interferes with radars’ detection capabilities, making the mission of air surveillance more complex. Working closely with diverse partners across a global industry, Thales offers solutions and services that can mitigate windfarms’ impact on radars – whether civil or military – saving time and cost   while safeguarding required safety levels.

Thales offers a dedicated field-proven innovative wind farm mitigation solution, providing improved safety as well as facilitating wind farm developments.

Disruptive winds

The development of windfarms – groups of wind turbines – around the world to address the need for renewable energy sources has to be done in cooperation whith civil aviation authorities when required. Wind turbine blades’ radar reflections can either appear as false aircraft detections on radar displays or mask the real aircraft tracks, increasing the probability of real targets being lost. The slightest uncertainty regarding an aircraft position in the sky, even for just a few seconds, can have significant consequences on air traffic safety and security in countries with a growing wind industry can be significant. 

Addressing this issue, however, is a challenge in itself. It requires careful adjustments to the radar’s signal processing capabilities so that sensitivity is not too high – creating too many false alerts – or too low – decreasing false alerts to the detriment of real targets.

Filtering the clutter

Leveraging years of experience in the development of radars for various threats, missions and purposes – whether civil or military – Thales offers the STAR NG (S-band up to 100nm) and the TRAC NG (L-band up to 250nm) radars, both including a feature enabling a proper a windfarm mitigation.

The Windfarm Filter is a dedicated algorithm that uses a specific adaptive Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) mechanism designed to minimise track loss and reduce false alarms above and around windfarms. It can be integrated to address both civil and military  needs and, as a software capability, can also be activated into other Thales ATC radars   already in service. 

De-risking

Finding the most appropriate solution, and the most accurate balance for the algorithm, is specific to every client’s needs. What works for one radar, operating around one windfarm characterised by a certain type of wind turbines, may not work for another radar in a different context. Evaluating the impact of each windfarm on potential radars is therefore crucial to de-risking investments.

To this end, Thales has developed a unique simulation tool, WINRAD, for evaluating the impact of proposed windfarms on its radars. Combining environment characteristics – terrain and windfarm visibility, windfarm boundary and layout, wind turbines – with radar behaviour, WINRAD can confirm the windfarm’s impact on radar performances. On this basis, it can then predict achievable performance criteria over and around the windfarm area, supporting the identification of the most appropriate radar solution to maintain required detection performance while reducing the false alarm rate. 

Thales works closely with all the stakeholders in the aviation sector and the wind energy industry to provide an end-to-end service to identify and deliver the optimum solution for each circumstance. Through the Wind Farm Filter and WINRAD, it not only continues to ensure sky safety; it also contributes to unlocking the development of windfarm, increasing their contribution towards a greener future.

Did you know?

  • The Thales Wind Farm Filter is field proven, with several dedicated flight trials performed in difficult circumstances, such as low Radar Cross Section (RCS) targets, ground and sea clutter, and low altitudes. 
  • The Wind Farm Filter is already operational in Europe and Africa