RSIS Finishes Major Doppler Radar Upgrade

November 1, 2006

RSIS engineers have completed an upgrade of the government’s 158 Doppler weather radars, substantially improving a national weather forecasting system already regarded as the best in the world.

Called the Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD), the system is the primary source of critical short-term weather information not only for the National Weather Service (NWS) but also for the Federal Aviation Administration, Air Force and Army.

The installation of the upgraded technology is the culmination of a six-year project launched by the NEXRAD Product Improvement (NPI) team in the NWS Office of Science and Technology (OS&T). RSIS formed a 35-person team, including engineers, scientists and electronic technicians, to work on the $36 million contract.

The NWS Radar Operations Center (ROC) in Norman, Okla. provided technical support to OS&T on the project, named Open Radar Data Acquisition (ORDA). The ROC, established in 1988, is responsible for NEXRAD life-cycle engineering support at the 158 locations in the U.S. and overseas.

At ceremonies marking the project completion, Richard Vogt, director of ROC, said the upgraded NEXRAD system “provides us new signal processing capabilities so we can put more sophisticated abilities into radar. It will make it more sensitive and more accurate.”

Vogt also said the ORDA technology is a platform upon which scientists and engineers can develop the new techniques such as Super Resolution that will help to increase forecast lead times.

“It’s very important to us to see the development of smaller storms and the ORDA will enable us to see smaller features, like precursors to tornadoes,” Vogt said. “An increase in lead time will allow us to warn people about approaching and developing storms earlier, allowing them to reach safety sooner.”

Dr. Terry Tarbell, RSIS Business Development Vice President, said that “ORDA is RSIS’ most complex systems development and deployment project to date. ORDA’s tremendous success is a tribute to our dedicated, talented ORDA team. Their positive work positions RSIS for other full-scale engineering and development opportunities such as the NEXRAD Dual Polarization upgrade, planned to start in 2007.”

Apart from the upgrade project, RSIS has supported the NEXRAD radar network in Norman since 2000 with a team of scientists and engineers headed by Bill Deringer, RSIS Director of Weather Radar Programs and Program Manager.

In 2001, the NWS Office of Science and Technology decided on the system upgrade and it selected RSIS to develop and deploy the improvements.

The project began with a proof-of-concept demonstration completed in 2001, followed by design development from 2002 to 2004, integration and testing from 2004 to 2005, and field deployment in 2006.

Under the supervision of RSIS Program Manager Peter Kochis, the team addressed hardware and software obsolescence, improving the system’s reliability, and making NEXRAD maintenance and troubleshooting tasks easier.

“ORDA’s open system architecture now provides the foundation for the introduction of a lot of new science and new capabilities for severe weather tracking and forecasting,” Deringer said. “These include higher resolution radar data and the ability to add advanced algorithms for producing weather products.”

The result, he said, is improvements in identifying wind shear data, earlier warning times, and greater accuracy of storm
path predictions.

During ORDA systems testing, several unexpected challenges occurred, requiring problem-solving sessions among Dr. Richard August, RSIS Science & Engineering Division Vice President, Deringer, Kochis and their ORDA team. Among other initiatives, RSIS developed a comprehensive integration and test program for the new system, as well as an aggressive deployment schedule to meet new project deadlines.

“RSIS met each schedule milestone with high quality services and deliverables, and, in fact, completed the 158 ORDA deployments several months ahead of schedule,” August said. He praised Kochis’ leadership.

“Peter joined the program at a critical point as we were completing our integration testing and documentation, preparing for systems testing, and developing our deployment plan,” August said. “His broad logistics experience and project leadership skills were key factors in our ability to meet our delivery schedule and develop the confidence of ROC and individual NEXRAD sites in the ORDA upgrade.”

The final phase of the project got underway last November when RSIS dispersed seven two-person teams—called installation and checkout (INCO) teams—to begin installation of the 158 ORDA sub-systems. The teams traveled to 46 states, the Azores, Guam, Japan, Korea, and Puerto Rico. Included were 20 Air Force and Army installations. Throughout, the teams were backed up by an ORDA Help Desk based in Norman and, when needed, the entire ORDA team.

The five teams assigned to locations in the continental U.S. traveled over 175,000 miles.

Each ORDA installation took about a week. ORDA equipment components include a digital receiver, a programmable signal processor, a networked infrastructure and a fast computer system (the “heart of the radar”) that enables new, sophisticated signal processing techniques used to provide super-resolution products and extended Doppler range—important capabilities for detecting small or distant tornadic features.

The ORDA INCO teams disassembled and removed 48 receiver/processor assemblies and 131 cables; installed ORDA hardware components, cabling, and software; and calibrated, adjusted, and tested the systems.

In an on-line survey, customers rated “overall experience” of the ORDA installation 4.8 out of 5.0.

Several ORDA team members received special RSIS recognition for making the ORDA design and implementation a success. Deringer received a 2005 President’s Award for being instrumental in getting the program on track. Lynn Ahpeatone, Program Analyst, received a 2005 President’s Award for countless evenings and weekends she spent creating the new test and deployment schedule. Nita Patel, Chief Engineer, received a 2003 President’s Award for designing a way to merge legacy code into the most critical ORDA module. Robert Macemon, Lead Systems Engineer, received a 2002 President’s award for heading a study that influenced the NWS to use an open systems approach.

“Nita, Lynn, and Bob were the glue that held the project together,” Kochis said. “The installation of the ORDA upgrades was a huge success we never could have achieved without their efforts.”

(The evening TV weather report relies on data and images from the NEXRAD Doppler Radar. Visit the NOAA website at http://www.nws.noaa.gov for more information)