(IVAR) - Final Report - Strategic Environmental Research and ...

very good because the system was sampling bird movements over the full 72 hr evaluation
period of December 15-17, 2009. Item 7, Appendix E provides a more detailed explanation
regarding how values were assigned.
Since August 2007, only wildlife biologists had daily access to the radar historical and live radar
data. They used this information to help answer questions related to identifying areas on the
airfield with higher than normal level of birds use, and to understand how birds were using a
variety of habitat types on Port property. The recent maturation of this technology now allows
for viewing the near real-time radar detections in conjunction with ongoing wildlife monitoring
and control activities. The survey we conducted was an effective method of obtaining
information on the practical utility of avian radar technologies for the wildlife biologists at SEA.
The biologists generally preferred the DRP display over that of the GEC for remotely viewing the
track data, even though the GEC displayed tracks from all three radars simultaneously. The
advantage of the DRP program, is that it could display both plots (detections) and tracks
simultaneously. The desire to see all radar detections stemmed from the biologists’ prior
experience with raptors, a group that typically circles tightly and slowly when soaring and can be
more difficult to track with the standard settings of the tracking algorithm. The biologists used the
GEC software on an occasional basis because it had the option of rapidly playing back the
preceding hour of activity for viewing. Unlike the DRP, establishing a GEC display on the
remote PC mounted in an operator’s vehicle did not require the VPN and VNC connections to
access the SEAAR1m radar on the Port’s internal network. Both remote displays were found to
be reliable and reasonably supported by the external USB wireless connection.
The biologists who implemented the real-time remote display capabilities in an airport operations
vehicle were interested in testing differences in latency between the displays to better understand
system capabilities and potential uses to airport operators. For the trials designed to emulate the
taking off/landing behavior of a bird and to monitor a constantly moving bird, the results showed
the latency was consistently twice as long for the GEC display compared to the DRP (Appendix E,
Table E-1). Consequently, when near real-time bird movement data was needed, the
biologists found the DRP to be the remote display of choice.
For radar applications where early notification of a hazardous situation is critical, the shorter
latency period would logically be preferred (see Section 6.4.1.2, Near-real-time integration for
common operational picture). For example, given the 2.5 s latency time (refresh rate) of the DRP
display, birds moving at 10 to 20 m/s (“fly passing”) would require the remote observer on the
airfield to look ahead roughly 40 m from where the DRP display indicated the target was in order
to visually locate the tracked bird(s). That distance would double for the GEC display tracking
the same birds. Moreover, birds that are just taking flight off from the airfield would travel at
least 275 m in the 17 s it takes the radar to detect, confirm, transmit and display the
target on the remote computer using the GEC. We should note, however, that the GEC sampling
rate was set to the default value in these studies. It can, and obviously should, be increased to
minimize latency for these types of applications.
The performance assessment values assigned to each of 10 categories on the questionnaire varied
slightly. The average score ranked better than a good rating for a radar system that provided
remote monitoring capabilities, and a four for overall situational awareness. One aspect of the
radar technology that they did not include in this rating, but that would have resulted in a higher
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