Oceanography radar system WERA: features, accuracy, reliability and limitations

摘要

The WERA system (WavE RAdar) is a shore based remote sensingsystem to monitor ocean surface currents, waves and wind direction.This long range, high resolution monitoring system based on shortradio wave radar technology. The vertical polarised electromagneticwave is coupled to the conductive ocean surface and follows thecurvature of the earth. This over the horizon oceanography radar canpick up back-scattered signals from the rough ocean surface (Braggeffect) from ranges of up to 200 km. The physical background,technical concept and environmental boundary conditions are explained.Results for various installations from all over the world demonstratesthe features and flexibility of the system: high resolution monitoring(range cell size of 300 m) over a range of 60~km or long rangeapplications with 3 km range cell size, all generated with the typicalhigh temporal resolution of 10 minutes. The technical performancedepends on the site geometry, system configuration and theenvironmental conditions. These aspects are discussed to enableinterested users to estimate the potential of this technology fortheir specific application.