Western Massachusetts Off-the-Grid Radar Technology Testbed

Distributed networks of short-range radars offer the potential to observe winds and rainfall at high spatial resolution in volumes of the troposphere that are unobserved by today´s longrange weather radars. One class of potential distributed radar network designs includes Off-the-Grid (OTG) weather radar networks. These are short-range radar nodes designed to be deployed as part of an ad-hoc network and to limit their reliance on existing infrastructure. Independence of the wired infrastructure (power or communications) would allow OTG networks to be deployed in specific regions where sensing needs are greatest, such as mountain valleys prone to flash-flooding, geographic regions where the infrastructure is susceptible to failure, and underdeveloped regions lacking urban infrastructure. This paper will present an OTG network testbed being deployed in Western Massachusetts to support experimentation with OTG nodes. This testbed will focus on the energy performance of the OTG network and the virtualization of the radar sensor.