Wind Turbine Clutter Spectrum Analysis of Radar Data and Mitigation at Tracker for Airborne Surveillance Radar

Wind energy has a major contribution in fulfilling green energy mission of India as it is an important renewable energy resource which is available in abundance. Towards this, India is the fourth country in the world for largest wind turbines installations over wide geographical areas. However, the impact of these wind turbines on radar performance degradation cannot be neglected. In this paper, Doppler spectrum of wind turbine clutter is analysed for the real radar data collected over different wind farms from S-band, phased array airborne surveillance radar. The motivation to model wind turbine clutter by using standard mathematical models arise from the fact that the rotation angle, yaw angle and rotation speed of wind turbine and its effect on radar returns is not known and need to be investigated by variation of different parameters and comparing it with real data. The simulated range Doppler map for wind turbine clutter is compared with different sets of real radar data resulting in clarity of wind turbine clutter impact on radar performance. In this paper, the analysis of wind turbine clutter effect on radar tracker along with mitigation is proposed at radar tracker level. Real data of radar tracker over wind farm is used for analysis and mitigation at radar tracker level.