Design and manufacture of atmospheric radar systems

Atmospheric Radar Systems (ATRAD) has won two important contracts for the supply of a "Meteor Radar" and an "Ionospheric Radar" to the Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics of The Chinese Academy of Sciences. This follows the company's earlier success in winning a contract in April 2001 from the Space Physics Department of the Electronics and Information Institute Wuhan University for the supply of a major VHF MST Radar system.

These contracts are the culmination of many visits to China by ATRAD staff and visits to Australia by scientists and officials from Wuhan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The contracts were awarded after a rigorous evaluation of ATRAD's scientific and engineering capabilities and experience.

Delivery of the radars will be spread over the next 12 months and will be installed by ATRAD staff in China, beginning with the first stage of the MST radar in December 2001.

Together, the three radar systems will provide Wuhan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences with the largest suite of Atmospheric Research Instrumentation in China.

The VHF MST (Mesospheric Stratospheric Tropospheric) will be the largest Atmospheric Research radar in China, and one of the most powerful & versatile research instruments of its type in the world. It provides a 512kW output power driving a quasi-circular array of 512 antenna and incorporates extremely flexible electronic beamsteering and power control.

The Meteor Radar will be an all-sky system used for wind and temperature estimation in the middle and upper atmosphere (80 - 100km) by tracking the drift of ionisation trails left by meteors as they enter the atmosphere.

Information gathered by meteor radars is of particular interest to scientists during major meteor shower activities, such as the "LEONIDS" meteor shower that occurs in November of each year. This system will be similar to the meteor radar that ATRAD recently installed inside the Arctic Circle in Svalbard, Norway for NIPR (National Institute for Polar Research) of Japan.

The Ionospheric Radar, to be delivered in early 2002, will be used to observe ionospheric irregularities and their drift in the E and F regions of the ionosphere. The radar will operate as a coherent Doppler backscatter radar, with the radar beam to be directed perpendicular to the geomagnetic field at E or F region heights.

This radar incorporates the same highly efficient, solid-state amplifiers and electronic beamsteering techology used in the MST radar, providing an extremely high level of flexibility in the operation and configuration of the radar system. The radar can be connected to a customer-supplied network connection to facilitate full remote control and monitoring.

The successful delivery of these radars will stand ATRAD in good stead for many more contracts in China.