Closed-loop architecture for distributed collaborative adaptive sensing of the atmosphere: meteorological command and control

Abstract

Distributed Collaborative Adaptive Sensing (DCAS) of the atmosphere is a new paradigm for detecting and predicting hazardous weather using a dense network of short-range, low-powered radars to sense the lowest few kilometres of the earth's atmosphere. DCAS systems are collaborative in that the beams from multiple radars are actively coordinated in a sense-andrespond manner to achieve greater sensitivity, precision and resolution than possible with a single radar. DCAS systems are adaptive in that the radars and their associated computing and communications infrastructure are dynamically reconfigured in response to changing weather conditions and end-user needs. This paper describes an end-to-end DCAS architecture and evaluates the performance of the system in an operational testbed with actual weather events and end-user considerations driving the system. Our results demonstrate how the architecture is capable of real-time data processing, optimisation of radar control and sensing of the atmosphere in a manner that maximises end-user utility. . (2010) 'Closed-loop architecture for distributive collaborative adaptive sensing of the atmosphere: meteorological command and control', Int.

The CASA quantitative precipitation estimation system: a five year validation study

“…For example, a full volume scan can be performed when a widespread shallow storm is present, whereas a narrower sector scan can be performed at multiple elevation angles to observe the vertical structure when deep convective storms are present. The CASA scan strategy systems are described in Zink et al (2010).…”

“…All the nodes are connected to the Internet, and the IP1 radars transfer real-time observations to a central server known as System Operations Control Center (SOCC), located at a central facility, where radar data are fused and processed. A Meteorological Command and Control (MC&C) system is also installed in SOCC which detects the weather features such as storm cells and circulations, optimizes resource allocation according to end-user's needs, and generates new scan tasks to reconfigure all the radar nodes (Zink et al, 2010). The architecture of the CASA system is shown Fig.…”

CloudCast: Cloud computing for short-term mobile weather forecasts

“…We designed this architecture for a new type of radar sensor network developed by the center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) [29], [39]. CASA has developed this new type of radar based weather observation systems to better observe the lowest part of the atmosphere and in turn improve the detection and prediction of severe weather.…”

“…Meteorological Command and Control (MC&C) [39] is the control part of the CASA network that determines how the radars will scan the atmosphere in each 60 second heartbeat. The scanning of each radar is determined by several factors, including 1) detections from data obtained in present heartbeat, 2) historical detections from earlier heartbeats, and 3) enduser policies.…”

“…Since we do not have access to NEXRAD nodes for our measurement, we make use of PlanetLab [17] a global research network that supports large-scale, distributed experiments. According to [39], radars generate data at a constant rate of roughly 5 Mbps. In the rest of the paper, we use 5 Mbps as the minimum required throughput between a radar node and the cloud instances to allow real-time transmission for Nowcasting operation.…”