Wind Turbine radar signature characterization by laboratory measurements

WTC (Wind Turbine Clutter) is clutter caused by wind turbines in the radar vicinity. As the power capacity of a single wind turbine increases, its size also increases dramatically. As a result, wind turbines not only block the radar beam, causing shadowing effects, but also create spectral contaminations due to the blade rotation. As a recently recognized type of clutter, WTC radar signatures need to be fully studied so that better solutions can be found for mitigation from radar data. Field measurements have difficulties controlling wind turbine motions, but laboratory measurements have full control of the wind turbine model, radar and EM environment. For such a purpose, the wind turbine-radar interaction was emulated in the laboratory, with full controllability of a scaled wind turbine model in an anechoic chamber. A scatterometer was made to emulate the actual radar functions. The measured wind turbine model Radar Cross Section (RCS) fluctuation caused by blade rotation and yaw movement will be shown. The Physical Optics (PO) EM solver was applied to simulate the scaled model RCS. The spectrogram and related features will also be analyzed.