NOC Vessel Calibrator (NOViCe)

海洋雷达是一种强大的环境监测和调查工具，商业上可用的解决方案是利用海面波浪的雷达图像计算水深和潮流。该领域的大部分工作（学术上和商业上）都使用地基静态雷达装置。然而，人们的兴趣越来越多地转向利用移动船只上的雷达进行这些远程测量。为了利用移动船舶上的雷达进行海洋观测，必须准确地确定一些“校准”参数，以便生成足够标准的雷达数据，用于海洋分析。这些参数基于船舶上组件的物理安装（因此不同的船舶会有所不同），很难手动确定。NOC最近的开发工作已经产生了一套工具（NOC船舶校准系统：新手），能够简单而可靠地准确确定这些偏移量。这些发展引起了Rutter公司的极大兴趣。Rutter公司是一家雷达公司，销售基于雷达的环境监测硬件和软件（通过其子公司OceanWaveS GmbH）。拟议的探路者项目将作为初步调查，在潜在的许可协议和NERC后续基金之前，确定新软件对商业合作伙伴提供的数据的适用性。根据许可向Rutter公司提供“新手”软件，将使Rutter公司能够为其海事部门的客户提供大大增强的船舶海洋雷达数据。

Marine radar is a powerful tool for environmental monitoring and survey with commercially available solutions to calculate water depth and tidal currents using radar images of waves on the sea surface. The majority of work in this field (both academically and commercially) uses ground-based, static radar installations. Increasingly however, interest is turning to making these remote measurements with radars on moving vessels. In order to make oceanographic observations using radar from a moving vessel a number of 'calibration' parameters must be accurately determined in order to generate radar data of a sufficient standard for oceanographic analysis. These parameters are based on the physical installation of components on a vessel (and thus change from vessel to vessel) and are very difficult to determine manually. Recent developmental work at the NOC has generated a set of tools (the NOC Vessel Calibrator system: NOViCe) that are capable of accurately determining these offsets simply and robustly.These developments have drawn considerable interest from Rutter Inc. - a radar company that sells radar-based environmental monitoring hardware and software (through their subsidiary OceanWaveS GmbH). The proposed pathfinder project will serve as a preliminary investigation to determine the applicability of the NOViCe software to data supplied by a commercial partner ahead of a potential license agreement and NERC Follow-on Fund. Supplying the NOViCe software to Rutter under license will enable Rutter to provide greatly enhanced vessel-based oceanographic radar data to their customers in the maritime sector.