UK air traffic services provider NATS contracts Terma to provide wind turbine mitigation radar

Aarhus, Denmark - The Terma SCANTER 4002 radar system forms part of a turnkey surveillance solution to mitigate the impact of the 19 turbine 50MW onshore Frodsham Wind Farm Ltd., owned by Peel Energy and Belltown Power, on the radar systems at both Chester Hawarden and Liverpool John Lennon airports. The solution will be delivered into service in February 2016.

Wind turbines can cause interference to the radar signals that air traffic controllers use to direct aircraft. The turbine blades can appear as ‘clutter’ on radar screens and be mistaken for aircraft.

The NATS solution is based on the Terma SCANTER 4002 radar, which has been demonstrated as being resilient to the impact of wind turbines. The contract with Frodsham WF Ltd. follows a number of successful trials at UK airports that demonstrated that the Terma system was capable of safely mitigating the impact of turbines while detecting even small targets beyond 40nm with good low level coverage. 

NATS believes that this is the first wind turbine resilient radar system, not requiring terrain shielding, to achieve this milestone in the UK and is now working with the rest of the team to deliver the overall project.

Iain Harris, NATS Engineering Services Director, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Terma, Peel, and Cobham to deliver this mitigation solution into both Chester Hawarden and Liverpool John Lennon Airports. The team has achieved a significant milestone in delivering an approved Safety Case Part 2 for this first of type solution in the UK and is now working to deliver the overall project.”

The SCANTER 4002 transceiver is designed for detection and separation of small air targets and large surface targets like wind turbines. To achieve simultaneous good performance for air and surface detection, the SCANTER 4002 radar system is designed as a two-dimensional coherent X-band radar with pulse compression and advanced MTI processing, which provides enhanced detection of small air targets.

Terma has more than 60 years of experience in developing radars. Major airports around the world and coastal shores rely on Terma sensor technology, for unprecedented small land, sea, and air target detection in extreme weather conditions.