Visibility analysis of wind turbines applied to assessment of wind farms´ electromagnetic impact

Wind farms have increased exponentially in the last decade around the world. Recent research revealed that wind farms may interfere with electronic equipments which employ electromagnetic wave such as radar, radio navigation instrument, etc. Therefore wind farms may threaten aviation safety and nautical safety. The wind farm is composed of several wind turbines. For evaluating the electromagnetic impact of wind farms on electronic equipment, the paper proposed a visibility analysis method for wind turbines. The method treats the wind turbine as a combination of a thin cylinder and a sphere firstly. Then the visibility is analyzed point by point in a specific section of the sphere. The result that whether a wind turbine is visible or invisible from a specified view point could be obtained by the proposed method. Also, for some wind turbines which are visible partly, which parts of the wind turbine are visible would be given further by the proposed method. Finally the proposed method is verified by simulated data.