International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 30-November 02, 1995 / Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada / A scatterometer is a radar system designed to make precise measurements of the
magnitude of the radar echo scattered from surface. If the measurement is made over
the ocean's surface, the surface wind speed and direction can be inferred. In order to
better understand the relationship between the radar return and the ocean winds we
have developed a unique ultra-wide band research scatterometer known as Yscat.
The Yscat radar system is computer controlled, with a separate computer collecting
environmental data. During a typical deployment, such as a recently completed 7
month deployment on Lake Ontario, the radar system is required to operate unmanned
for weeks at a time, collecting data at a rate of up to 2 GB per week. Controlling such
a complex system, and handling such large amounts of data presents a challenging
remote operation problem.
We used a novel combination of personal computers, telephone controlled switches,
modems, and off the shelf software packages to enable us to perform daily monitoring,
trouble shooting, and data transfer via a simple telephone connection. Data was stored
on 4 mm DAT tapes for weekly pickup by a technician.
This paper describes the Yscat system and our approach to control, monitoring, and
data storage. While our approach is relatively "low tech", it has been very cost
effective. This type of approach may be of interest to other designers of unique
instrumentation at remote sites.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/608531 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Reed, Ryan, Long, David G., Arnold, David V. |
| Publisher | International Foundation for Telemetering |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Proceedings |
| Rights | Copyright © International Foundation for Telemetering |
| Relation | http://www.telemetry.org/ |
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