Development of smart antenna for portable Doppler sodar systems

Sound wave is an attractive tool in ground- based remote sensing methods, because of its strong
dependence on the air temperature and wind velocity .The development of the acoustic methods for
atmospheric research essentially relies on achievements in theoretical and experimental investigations
in sound propagation in the atmosphere. The Doppler sodars are a form of atmospheric echo sounder
(or acoustic radar). An audible beep is beamed up into the atmosphere and very faint echoes from
features within the air itself are detected back at the ground. Reflection (echoing) is caused by
unevenness (inhomogeneity) in the structure of the atmosphere, mainly small localized differences in
density (due to differences in temperature) and humidity. This unevenness occurs particularly in regions
of the atmosphere where turbulence is predominant. The travel time between emission and reception
determines the height the signal represents. The small differences between the frequency of the
transmitted beep and that of its echo are measured. These differences arise from the Doppler Effect, in
which the frequency of a wave at a receiver differs from that at the source if the source and the receiver
are moving towards or away from each other. In this case, it is the motion of the reflecting
inhomogeneity that causes the frequency change. The Doppler shift in the frequency is proportional to
the wind speed along the beam axis. The intensity of the received signal is used to study the presence of
inversion layers and stability conditions.
Some of the recent sodar systems have five antennas for cross checking the echo-signal quality. One
antenna is pointed to zenith and the other two antennas are oriented to south (north) and east (west).
The two antennas are usually titled 200 from the vertical axis. The type of antennas range from a simple
parabolic dish to more sophisticated planar surface array. The choice depends on a variety of
parameters such as the site, height coverage required, etc. The antennas are usually having an acoustic
absorbing cuff around each one of them to minimize ambient and environmental noise interfering with
the atmospheric echo-signal. In fact, the acoustic enclosure is the bulkiest part of the total sodar system.
In the proposed system, a phased array antenna that can produce the required three beams in three
different directions will be used. To reduce the size and bulkiness of the antenna system, thus making
the system light weight and portable.
The transmitter unit of the Doppler sodar system consists of a commercial available audio power
amplifier of about 500W output weighing about 10 kg. The entire signal generation for the transmission
of three frequencies for the three different directions is done by the on-board sound card of the
computer. The echo signal, after pre-processing in the preamplifier and the receiver, will be given to the
input of the sound card for digitization and implementation of the ramp action. All other processing and
display of the results will be carried out by the computer.