Radar-based Detection of Birds at Wind Turbines: Numerical Analysis for Optimum Coverage

The use of radar systems for monitoring and adaptive wind turbine control can reduce bird and bat mortality at wind turbines. For such projects many challenges such as range, coverage, resolution, position and reaction speed of the radar system have to be overcome. With suitable simulations, many of these obstacles are easier to overcome and many errors in the construction and installation of the radar systems can be avoided in advance. In this paper, we present a simulation environment to find a suitable position for radar systems used for bird monitoring at wind turbine installations. In this paper we present a simulation for five frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar system operating in the Ka-band from 33.4 GHz to 36.0 GHz. The aim of this paper is to find a suitable position for an optimal coverage around the wind turbine using five FMCW radars.