Wind Farm Clutter Mitigation in Air Surveillance Radar

Windmills provide a renewable energy resource that could become major components of the power infrastructure in the United States, Europe, and Asia within the next decade. However, collections of windmills, known as wind farms, cause interference in radars that are critical to air defense and air traffic systems. Therefore, to maintain and, perhaps, improve air surveillance, methods that mitigate the inevitable performance degradation seen in radar systems must be proven and implemented to deal with wind farms as they become more prevalent. Herein, the authors discuss recommended techniques for wind farm mitigation, which are based on a UK Royal Air Force-sponsored demonstration on a Watchman radar, conducted at Clatter, South Wales. Specifically, false alarm and false track reductions will be quantified.