Analysis on the range of wind farm's impact area for secondary surveillance radar

The wind farm may impact on air traffic control radars such as primary surveillance radar and secondary surveillance radar obviously. The effective assessment of these impacts is important for guaranteeing the safety of aircraft flying. For the purpose of detailed assessing the impact of the wind farm on secondary surveillance radar, the paper proposed an impact area analysis method. The impact area is the projected area of an aircraft flying airspace where the secondary surveillance radar may be affected by the wind farm. The method determined the impact area of response signals and interrogation signals for each wind turbine in the wind farm respectively. The boundary parameters of the impact area were calculated with the path difference condition and power condition of the reflected signal. The analysis results employing the proposed method for an actual case in China were also presented. The analysis results indicate that the influence of the RCS of the wind turbine is significant to the range of the impact area, while the affection of the flight height of the aircraft is less prominent.