Brazil joined the select group of countries with technological capabilities to manufacture the Solid State Dual Polarization S Band Weather Radar, and it is ready to compete in the international market.
The system generates accurate, real time data on storms, winds, cyclones, hurricanes, and other severe weather events.
Cemaden uses the data generated by the RMT 0200 to monitor and prevent natural disasters, such as landslides, floods, and torrents, in order to protect lives. The system manufactured by IACIT provides the federal agency with information on location, intensity, and the moment when precipitation will occur, allowing for the advance planning of preventive actions.
The radar covers an area of approximately 400 kilometers in radius, which houses a population of around 20 million people, with nearly 2 million of them living in risk areas.
In Brazil, Cemaden's major concern is focused on the storms hitting the country mainly in the summer, causing plenty of damage. With quick formation, this type of precipitation can only be detected by weather radars.
The dual polarization of the RMT 0200 allows monitoring the formation and evolution of hydrometeors inside clouds, which means, it measures the volume and size of water droplets, hail, or ice crystals inside these clouds, for instance.
With a user friendly interface, the system provides clear data and images on the various types of weather phenomena, enabling meteorologists to analyze the large volume of information with greater speed and precision.
In addition to contributing to natural disaster prevention agencies, RMT 0200 can be used by institutions from various sectors, such as the Armed Forces, Air Traffic Control, Agriculture, Water Resources Management, Climatology and the Research & Development Center.
Throughout all these sectors, the radar contributes to a better situational awareness, providing subsidies for assertive decision making, aiming to protect lives and material resources.
“The system IACIT has developed goes beyond the sensors themselves. It has an additional software layer to the radar, which generates automatic early warnings for a variety of scenarios. Thus, the radar can be useful both for institutes and centers which have their meteorologists and their own warning systems, as well as for operational bodies and companies in need to receive warnings automaticallyâ€, explains Engineer Gustavo de Castro Hissi, Director of Marketing and Sales of IACIT.
According to him, this is possible because the system is capable to process the entire volume of information generated by the RMT 0200, according to predefined parameters, and perform machine machine communication, automatically issuing the warning within the user's operation.
The RMT 0200 also integrates a software platform which allows the set up, monitoring and control of the radar operation to be performed remotely.
IACIT is the only company in Brazil and Latin America to manufacture Solid State Dual Polarization S Band Weather Radar. According to Gustavo, the system developed by the Brazilian company combines state of the art technologies which place the RMT 0200 among the most recommended sensors for weather monitoring and nowcasting forecasting.
“Typically, weather radars operate on tube systems. IACIT brought the Defense radar technology to the RMT 0200. Its amplification system is totally based on a gallium nitride transistor (GaN), which guarantees a huge useful life and a very low failure rateâ€, explains Gustavo.
With the use of solid state technology, it was possible to apply pulse compression technology in the signal treatment, thus, less peak power is applied in transmissions. This ensures lower energy consumption, less noise and less electromagnetic pollution.
The emitted beams have dual polarization horizontal and vertical , therefore, the RMT 0200 can classify and measure the two dimensions of the monitoring phenomenon, among them: Precipitation Detection, Hydrometeor Classification (ice, water, snow, etc.), Severe Weather Detection, Hail Detection, Rain Classification (low, medium, moderate and heavy), among others. ■