Modelling the Impact of Large Floating Wind Turbines on Offshore Navigation and Safety Critical Radar Systems

据报道，风力发电场会影响和降低用于空中交通管制、空中监视、预警系统和导航的雷达系统的性能。风力发电机的散射特性对雷达系统产生的潜在干扰被认为是一个重要的问题，受到了研究界和工业界的广泛关注。然而，由于涡轮结构的几何复杂性及其在雷达频率下的巨大电尺寸，雷达散射的研究和建模对研究界提出了实质性的挑战。由于超级计算环境的固有要求或建模运行时间的延长，商用计算电磁（CEM）工具和其他全波求解器的使用仅限于少数预定义的涡轮方向。为了适应对可再生能源需求的增长，更大的风力发电场正在计划部署在更远的近海——在更深的水域和更不利的海底条件下。浮动基础被广泛提出，以降低成本，使海上风力涡轮机能够更快地发展。未来的风能开发项目（如Hornsea项目2号和3号）在其设计范围内包括浮动基础。其中一些项目位于一些关键航线附近，以及安装了REWS的海上油气平台。迄今为止，浮动地基对风力发电场附近或内部导航和安全雷达系统的运行和效率的影响目前在很大程度上是未知的。大型浮式风力涡轮机由于其尺寸、结构材料、振动剖面以及在风荷载和恶劣天气/海洋条件下的运动，将具有独特的散射特性。浮动涡轮机可能会极大地改变雷达的横截面及其动力学，从而影响雷达系统。该项目将研究安装在浮动基础上的风力涡轮机对海上雷达操作的影响。该项目将开发浮动基础的雷达散射模型，并考虑诸如几何形状、材料和平台在恶劣天气条件下的运动等重要参数。该项目将建立在最近授予的Supergen基金的基础上，以测量和模拟由ORE Catapult管理的大型7MW涡轮机的雷达散射。该项目将分析来自ORE弹射器涡轮机的测量数据，以及由南非科学与工业研究委员会（CSIR）提供给曼彻斯特大学的大型风电场/雷达测量数据集，以进一步开发现有的涡轮机模型，并将其与浮动基础的新模型集成。通过对测量数据的分析、验证和综合建模，可以很好地反映未来海上风力机的发展趋势。然后，这将用于模拟涡轮机在典型和不利条件下产生的静态雷达回波和多普勒特征，用于安全关键雷达操作，例如在能见度低的情况下导航，搜索和救援工作以及用于防止海上油气资产碰撞的REWS。

It has been well reported that wind farms can impact and degrade the performance of radar systems for air traffic control, air surveillance, early warning systems and navigational. The potential interference generated by the scattering characteristics of wind turbines on radar systems is considered a significant issue and has received a lot of attention from the research community and industry alike. However, due to the geometrical complexity of the turbine structure and its enormous electrical size at radar frequencies, the study and modelling of the radar scattering presented a substantial challenge to the research community. The use of commercial Computational Electromagnetic (CEM) tools and other full-wave solvers was limited to a small number of predefined turbine orientations due to the inherent requirement of supercomputing environment or extended modelling runtimes. To accommodate for the growth in demand for renewable energy, larger wind farms are being planned for deployment further offshore -in deeper waters and less favourable seabed conditions. Floating foundations are being widely proposed to reduce costs and enable more rapid growth of offshore wind turbines. Future wind developments (Such as Hornsea Project Two and Three) included floating foundations within their Design Envelope. Some of these projects are located near a number of key shipping routes as well as offshore O&G platforms with REWS installations. To date, the effects of floating foundation on the operation and efficiency of navigational and safety radar systems operating near or within the wind farm is currently largely unknown. Large floating wind turbines will have unique scattering characteristics due to its size, construction materials, vibration profile and movements under wind loading and adverse weather/sea conditions. Floating turbines are likely to dramatically change the radar cross section and its dynamics and consequently impact radar systems.This project will study the effects of wind turbines mounted on floating foundations on offshore radar operations. The project will develop radar scattering models for the floating foundations and account for important parameters such as geometry, materials and platform movement under adverse weather conditions. This project will build on the recently awarded Supergen funding to measure and model the radar scattering from the large 7MW turbine managed by ORE Catapult. The project will analyse the measured data from the ORE Catapult turbine as well as the large dataset of wind farm/radar measurements made available to the University of Manchester by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa to further develop the existing turbine models and integrate them with the new models of the floating foundations. The analysis, verification and integration of measurements with the modelling capabilities will give a good representation of future offshore turbine. This will then be used to model the static radar returns and Doppler signature generated from the turbines under typical and adverse conditions for safety critical radar operations such as navigation under poor visibility, search and rescue efforts and REWS for collision prevention with offshore O&G assets.