Comparison of Beijing MST Radar and Radiosonde Horizontal Wind Measurements

To determine the performance and data accuracy of the 50 MHz Beijing Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere （MST） radar, comparisons of radar measured horizontal winds in the height range 3-25 km with radiosonde observations were made during 2012. A total of 427 profiles and 15 210 data pairs were compared. There was very good agreement between the two types of measurement. Standard deviations of difference （mean difference） for wind direction, wind speed, zonal wind and meridional wind were 24.86° （0.77°）, 3.37 （-0.44）, 3.33 （-0.32） and 3.58 （-0.25） m s^-1, respectively. The annual standard deviations of differences for wind speed were within 2.5-3 m s^-1 at all heights apart from 10-15 km, the area of strong winds, where the values were 3-4 m s^-1. The relatively larger differences were mainly due to wind field variations in height regions with larger wind speeds, stronger wind shear and the quasi-zero wind layer. A lower MST radar SNR and a lower percentage of data pairs compared will also result in larger inconsistencies. Importantly, this study found that differences between the MST radar and radiosonde observations did not simply increase when balloon drift resulted in an increase in the real-time distance between the two instruments, but also depended on spatiotemporal structures and their respective positions in the contemporary synoptic systems. In this sense, the MST radar was shown to be a unique observation facility for atmospheric dynamics studies, as well as an operational meteorological observation system with a high temporal and vertical resolution.

Wind Measurement with a Wind Profiling Radar

The first troposphere wind profiling radar in China has been in operation. The paper describes the radar parameters and characteristics with some experimental results presented.

Comparison and Verification of Coherent Doppler Wind Lidar and Radiosonde Data in the Beijing Urban Area

As a new type of wind field detection equipment, coherent Doppler wind lidar(CDWL) still needs more relevant observation experiments to compare and verify whether it can achieve the accuracy and precision of traditional observation equipment in urban areas. In this experiment, a self-developed CDWL provided four months of observations in the southern Beijing area. After the data acquisition time and height match, the wind profile data obtained based on a Doppler beam swinging(DBS) five-beam inversion algorithm were compared with radiosonde data released from the same location. The standard deviation(SD) of wind speed is 0.8 m s^(–1), and the coefficient of determination R~2 is 0.95. The SD of the wind direction is 17.7° with an R~2 of 0.96. Below the height of the roughness sublayer(about 400 m), the error in wind speed and wind direction is significantly greater than the error above the height of the boundary layer(about 1500 m). For the case of wind speeds less than 4 m s^(–1), the error of wind direction is more significant and is affected by the distribution of surrounding buildings. Averaging at different height levels using suitable time windows can effectively reduce the effects of turbulence and thus reduce the error caused by the different measurement methods of the two devices.

An atmospheric backscatter model on wind measurements using far-field approximation method

A backscatter model was developed for measur-ing wind field with the far-field approximation method.The theoretical computation and computer simulations with one spatial dimension show that this model can realistically describe the physical meaning and process of the three methods in wind measurements including the spaced antenna(SA)method,Doppler beam swing(DBS)method,and spaced interferometry(SI).The computational difficulties of the traditional theoretical model cannot only be smoothed away,but common characteristics and differences of the three methods can be compared deeply.The comparison of the numerical results between the Wuhan medium frequency(MF)radar(30°N,114°E)observation and the computer simulation of the full correlation analysis(FCA)of the SA method indicates that the two results agree very well and this model has practical application.

Multi-Laser Beams Measuring System for High Precision Detection on Displacement of Wind Fields

A novel multi-laser beams measuring system （MLBM） for high precision detection on displacement of flow fields based on laser backscatter was designed and studied. MLBM has many advantages, such as simple structure, high stability, and no limitation of the monochromaticity of laser. By circumventing the strong influence of atmospheric backscattering on the high sensitivity of target echo detection, high precision detection on backscatter density of laser by signal processing was achieved. Furthermore, the signal densities of various distances were extracted by time sampling and precise frequency control of digital circuit. Finally, the MLBM system including devices integrated of emitting and reviving equipments and program was obtained. Detection experiments showed that our system has high precision and the measurement error could be controlled within 5% to 10%.

THE INFLUENCE OF INHOMOGENEOUS WIND DISTRIBUTION ON DATA QUALITY FOR WIND PROFILING RADAR

Horizontal wind measured by wind profiling radar(WPR) is based on uniform wind assumption in volume of lateral beam. However, this assumption cannot completely meet in the real atmosphere. The subject of this work is to analyze the influence of atmospheric inhomogeneities for wind measurement. Five-beam WPR can measure two groups of horizontal wind components U and V independently, using the difference of horizontal wind components U and V can evaluate the influence of the inhomogeneity of the atmospheric motion on wind measurement. The influences can be divided into both inhomogeneous distribution of horizontal motion and vertical motion. Based on wind measurements and meteorological background information, a new means of coordinate rotation the two kinds of inhomogeneous factor was separated, and the impact in different weather background was discussed. From analysis of the wind measured by type of PB-II WPR(445MHz) during 2012 at Yanqing of Beijing, it is shown that the inhomogeneity of horizontal motion is nearly the same in U and V direction. Both the inhomogeneities of horizontal motion and vertical motion have influence on wind measurement, and the degrees of both influences are associated with changes of wind speed. In clear air, inhomogeneity of horizontal motion is the main influence on wind measurement because of small vertical velocity.In precipitation, the two influences are larger than that in clear air.

Seasonal Wind Characteristics and Prospects of Wind Energy Conversion Systems for Water Production in the Far North Region of Cameroon

This study aimed at investigating the characteristics of the wind power resource in the Far North Region of Cameroon (FNR), based on modelling of daily long-term satellite-derived data (2005-2020) and in-situ wind measurements data (1987-2020). Five different reliable statistical indicators assessed the accuracy level for the goodness-of-fit tests of satellite-derived data. The two-parameter Weibull distribution function using the energy factor method described the statistical distribution of wind speed and investigated the characteristics of the wind power resource. Six 10-kW pitch-controlled wind turbines (WT) evaluated the power output, energy and water produced. A 50 m pumping head was considered to estimate seasonal variations of volumetric flow rates and costs of water produced. The results revealed that the wind resource in FNR is suitable only for wind pumping applications. Based on the hydraulic requirements for wind pumps, mechanical wind pumping system can be the most cost-effective option of wind pumping technologies in FNR. However, based on the estimated capacity factors of selected WT, wind electric pumping system can be acceptable for only four out of twenty-one sites in FNR.

Dependence of interferogram phase on incident wavenumber and phase stability of Doppler asymmetric spatial heterodyne spectroscopy

Instrument drifts introduce additional phase errors into atmospheric wind measurement of Doppler asymmetric spatial heterodyne spectroscopy (DASH). Aiming at the phase sensitivity of DASH to instrument drifts, in this paper we calculate the optical path difference (OPD) and present an accurate formula of DASH interferogram. By controlling variables in computational ray-tracing simulations and laboratory experiments, it is indicated that initial phase is directly determined by incident wavenumber, OPD offset and field of view (FOV). Accordingly, it is indicated that retrieved phase of DASH is sensitive to slight structural change caused by instrument drift, which provides the proof of necessary-to-track and -correct phase errors from instrument drifts.

MEASUREMENTS AND THEORETICAL STUDY ON GROWTH RATES OF TURBULENT WIND WAVES

The spatial growth of turbulent wind waves is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Introduction of wave induced turbulent Reynolds stress, in particu- lar at the average interface, makes great improvement in the prediction of wind wave properties.

Numerical investigation and optimal design of fiber Bragg grating based wind pressure sensor

A wind pressure sensor based on fiber Bragg grating （FBG） for engineering structure was investigated in this paper. We established a transaction model of wind pressure to strain and proposed a method of temperature compensation. By finite element analysis, the basic parameters of the sensor were optimized with the aim of maximum strain under the basic wind pressure proposed in relative design code in China taking geometrical non-linearity into consideration. The result shows that the wind pressure sensor we proposed is well performed and have good sensing properties, which means it is a technically feasible solution.

Adaptive Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Controller for Variable-speed Wind Turbine

In this paper,an adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy controller is proposed for variable-speed and variable-pitch wind turbines.Because of attractive features of the well-known wind turbine baseline controller,the proposed controller acts as an augmented controller and works in parallel to the baseline controller.As typical variable-speed wind turbines have different controllers for different operation regions,for each operation region,a dedicated interval tvpe-2 fuzzy controller is designed.Because of the uncertainty in wind speed measurement,modern control techniques try to estimate this value.However,in contrast to these modern control techniques,the proposed controller is independent of the wind speed estimation.Thus,there is a better saving in cost and computational burden.To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed controller,simulations are conducted with wind profiles which span all operation regions.Results show that,compared with the baseline controller,the proposed controller enhances power generations and reduces mechanical loads concurrently.

DOPPLER SODAR AND ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY LAYER DETECTION

A Doppler sodar system controlled by microcomputer is described in this paper. The sodar was used to detect the vertical distribution of wind and temperature stratification in the atmospheric boundary layer. The detecting results show that at night the vertical distribution of wind is very complicated, which can appear as a structure of two or three layers. In nocturnal atmospheric boundary layer sometimes there exists very thin layer in multi-layer inversion and it can be retained for a long time.

Measuring boundary-layer height under clear and cloudy conditions using three instruments

Boundary-layer height （BLH） under clear, altostratus and low stratus cloud conditions were measured by GPS sounding, wind profiler radar, and micro-pulse lidar during the atmospheric radiation measurement experiment from Sep. to Dec. 2008 in Shouxian, Anhui, China. Results showed that during daytime or nighttime, regardless of cloud conditions, the GPS sounding was the most accurate method for measuring BLH. Unfortunately, because of the long time gap between launchings, sounding data did not capture the diurnal evolution of the BLH. Thus, wind profile radar emerged as a promising instrument for direct and continuous measurement of the mixing height during the daytime, accurately determining BLH using the structure parameter of the electromagnetic refractive index. However, during nighttime, radar was limited by weak signal extraction and did not work well for determining the BLH of the stable boundary layer, often recording the BLH of the residual layer. While micro-pulse lidar recorded the evolution of BLH, it overestimated the BLH of the stable boundary layer. This method also failed to work under cloudy conditions because of the influence of water vapor. Future work needs to develop a method to determine BLH that combines the complimentary features of all three algorithms.