Introduction
Radar-based Aircraft Detection Lighting System
Terma’s ADLS provides continuous, reliable 360-degree monitoring of the airspace surrounding a wind farm, allowing Aviation Obstruction Lights to remain off until an aircraft is detected nearby. Once the aircraft enters the designated wind farm safety zone, our system automatically activates the necessary obstruction lights and turns them off once the aircraft safely exits the area.
We make sure that the Aircraft Detection Lighting are turned on only when necessary, i.e. when an aircraft is nearby. The majority of the time when the Aircraft Detection Lighting are not needed, they will stay off.
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Reducing light pollution
Turn Aircraft Detection Lighting on – but only when needed. The increasing size of wind turbines is creating safety and societal challenges for the wind industry, the authorities, and the surrounding municipalities when it comes to complying with air traffic regulations.
As wind turbines grow taller and enter the lower airspace, high intensity Aircraft Detection Lighting is needed. The high-intensity lights required for higher wind turbines can appear very intrusive to wind farm neighbors and to an otherwise pristine night sky. The high intensity lights cause a growing number of delays and cancelations of wind farms due to complaints from neighbors and municipalities near planned wind farms. These problems can be overcome by turning the obstruction lights on only when necessary, i.e. when there is an aircraft in the vicinity of the wind farm. Terma’s Aircraft Detection Lighting Solution (ADLS) vastly reduces light pollution caused by wind farms and improves the success rate of wind farm deployments.
Approvals
Terma has an extensive track record with approval authorities providing documentation, standard safety cases, and support. Terma’s know-how and domain leadership can be of great benefit in the approval process for planning and operational permits. Working with Terma is a long-term partnership from the approval process through to deployment or retrofit of the wind farm.
Terma’s ADLS is certified for deployment in the United States, Canada and parts of Europe.
Proven and reliable technology
Terma has been a world leader within radar detection technologies for more than 60 years. Our +3,000 Terma radar systems are protecting borders, harbors, airports, coast lines and wind farms worldwide. More than 85% of all major airports around the world and 65% of all coastal shores rely on Terma’s radar technology.
Terma’s ADLS is based on our proven and reliable technology, ensuring continuous operation and low maintenance costs. Combined with our global service and maintenance capability, you obtain a proven high-performance system with very low risk.
Terma’s Aircraft Detection Lighting System (ADLS) vastly reduces light pollution, and increases public acceptance of wind farms
Terma Lifecare
We take care of your products - know your Total Cost of Ownership at purchase.
We ensure that your radar solution is maintained to minimize risk of downtime and keep your radar system running in perfect conditions to protect your investment.
Benefits
Turn Aircraft Detection Lighting on – but only when needed
Our proven radar capabilities within radar surveillance provide a confident solution for small target detection in all weather conditions. This means that small aircraft, helicopters, gliders, ultralights, and other small non-cooperative targets will be warned by the Aircraft Detection Lighting.
Terma’s built in target classifier is on the forefront of adaptive machine learning, to discriminate small non-cooperative targets from larger flocks of birds. This means that larger flocks of birds will not activate the obstruction lights. Birds’ not activating the Aircraft Detection Lighting on near- and off-shore windfarms is of great importance, not only to the neighbouring municipalities, and environmental bodies, but the birds too. Large flocks of birds are drawn to activated Aircraft Detection Lighting, greatly putting the life of the flock at risk.
Key benefits
- Vendor-neutral. Terma’s ADLS integrates with existing infrastructure and lighting from leading Wind Turbine Generator vendors.
- Scalability / Deployment flexibility. Terma radar capabilities and deployment offerings enable flexible solutions, for on-shore, near-shore, and off-shore wind farms, bringing down the total cost of ownership.
- Terma’s SCANTER 5202 is a commercial of the shelf product with more than 300 installations in service.
The high intensity lights required for higher wind turbines can appear very intrusive to wind farm neighbors and to an otherwise pristine night sky.
Functionality
Sustainable energy
We need to implement more sustainable energy for a future less dependent on fossil fuels, and wind energy is a great contribution to a sustainable energy grid. At Terma, we have solutions to support the implementation of more wind energy, and at the same time reduce the visual pollution caused by wind farm Aircraft Detection Lighting.
Turn Aircraft Detection Lighting on – but only when needed
Terma’s SCANTER radars have fully digital signal processing and Solid State technology, providing extremely clear radar images with low probability of false alarms. Our SCANTER radars detect non cooperative targets such as small aircraft, including ultralights and birds in any conceivable weather condition. Therefore, Aircraft Detection Lighting are turned on only when needed.
Terma's radars can truly co-exist with wind turbines without the need for blanking out wind farm areas
Scalability
Our ADLS provides 360 degree coverage (24/7) of up to 2,100 km2 of wind farm surveillance. SCANTER radars for our ADLS have an instrumented range of up to 26 km detection radius, making our solution ideal for both small and large wind farms. For wind farms with a scattered layout, and to accommodate for future developments and expansions of the wind farm, additional SCANTER radars can be added.
Cost-effective
The scalability and flexible positioning of the SCANTER radar to mitigate multiple wind farms with a single radar is important to bring down the total cost and provide scalability to grow with future expansion of the wind farm.
Product sustainment
The Terma SCANTER radar family has proven its performance, reliability, and sustainability in security applications all over the world. Based on Terma’s vast know-how and leading hardware and software technology, SCANTER radars provide our clients with a proven platform ensuring high availability (High Meantime Between failure).
Service & Support
At Terma, we know the importance of keeping the blades spinning. That is why we offer global Support & Service Agreements for up to 25 years, supporting long time sustainability and obsolescence management of our SCANTER products throughout the life time of the wind farm.