Walter Arnold Patterson

US Patent:

53111834, May 10, 1994

Filed:

Jun 13, 1991

Appl. No.:

7/714133

Inventors:

Bruce D. Mathews - Catonsville MD
Paul D. Mountcastle - Columbia MD
Walter W. Patterson - Edgewater MD

Assignee:

Westinghouse Electric Corp. - Pittsburgh PA

International Classification:

G01S 1395

US Classification:

342 26

Abstract:

The present invention is an airborne radar system which scans the flight path of an aircraft with two radar scans, an upper elevation pointing above local level and a lower elevation scan pointing below the glide slope. The radar returns from the upper elevation scan are used to detect the core of the microburst. The core and a model of the windshear which uses the core are used to select angles and range cell candidates, in a lower elevation scan, for hazard detection processing. The candidates in the lower scan, which is pointing at the ground, are used to create a hazard map tested against a predetermined hazard threshold. A threshold violation results in a pilot alert. The hazard map includes a vertical factor determined through model coefficients in the radial outflow as a function of altitude. The invention applies the model to determine the total hazard factor along the glideslope using the vertical hazard of the model and altitude scaling of the horizontal hazard from the lower bar elevation to the glideslope of the aircraft. The present invention also includes a radar scan with two pulse repetition frequencies which allows the elimination of non-correlated returns.