Wind turbine radar interference mitigation: Factors to evaluate future radar-based solutions

A burgeoning issue for air traffic control (ATC) systems is the radar clutter wind turbines produce throughout the United States. Wind turbines generate false returns and clutter in ATC radars which reduce the probability of detection of the radar, produce false plots from the radar, generate false tracks on an air terminal displays, cause dual tracks, and may even produce track seductions. These issues increase the workload for air traffic controllers and may render some airspace unusable. Wind turbines are expected to continue to increase in height and blade diameter over the next few years and the number of turbines is expected to grow exponentially as existing wind farms expand and new wind farms are established. The current problem we have today will compound in the coming years.Government agencies are working on solutions but there is no panacea at present. However, in the coming years we expect there will be new radars that may solve these problems. These radars will need to be evaluated and compared in terms of performance and cost. This evaluation, sometimes called an alternatives analysis, requires an analytical approach to baseline the current conditions and rate potential solutions. In anticipation of this future need, the authors present a varied set of factors to help evaluators judge potential radar solutions.We present multiple factors for analyses of alternative approaches. These factors would allow agencies to baseline current radars and current operational conditions, score potential radars, and compare potential alternatives for effectiveness. Our factors may be broadly categorized as: radar performance and operations; wind turbine resource area distributions; and airspace mission factors. In this paper, we detail these factors and their constituent parts, and present examples of each. We envisage decision makers will use our factors directly or tailor them to evaluate future radars based on individual agency needs.