Assessment Of The Wind Farm Impact On The Radar

i ii Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this report. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this report contains no material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference is given in the text of the report. This document has been written during an internship working for Thales Air Systems in collaboration with École Nationale Supérieure des Ingénieurs des Etudes et Techniques d'Armement (ENSIETA). I empower École Nationale Supérieure des Ingénieurs des Etudes et Techniques d'Armement to reproduce this report by photocopying or by other means either the whole or any portion of the contents without my further knowledge. Also I cede copyright of the report in favour of Thales Air Systems. Preface Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth [13].-Don Quixote about windmills The made-up history written in 1605 repeats itself nowadays. However , in contrast to delusions of Don Quixote 1 , modern wind turbines present the real challenge for the radar industry. In comparison with more than century history of radars, wind turbines have appeared relatively not long ago. In terms of the radar, wind turbines differ from known nature and human made objects. They can be as big as an Airbus A380, the velocity of their blades could be compared with an aircraft speed. It leads to the new problem for the radar detection and tracking. It concerns the majority of radars-civil and military, surface and airborne, 2D and 3D. Wind farms can have hundreds of wind turbines. One wind farm can cover a few square kilometres. Each part, each turbine makes the signal, which interfere with the radar. Although wind farms are, evidently, stationary, they influence the filters, e.g. Kalman filter, and do not let track an airplane. It is not easy to recognise the target even for a human as well. The operator observes the same signals from turbines. In fact, this problem concerns the security and safety. Difficulties for military radars threaten the national …