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

APPENDIX E. SURVEY OF AIRPORT PERSONNEL USE OF REMOTE
DISPLAYS OF AVIAN RADAR INFORMATION
Airport:
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
Operator of remote display:
Steve Osmek, Senior Wildlife Biologist, Port of Seattle
Patrick Viehoever, Wildlife Biologist, USDA Wildlife Services
Date:
December 18, 2009
Technology Description
1. Provide a brief description of the technology used for remote display of avian radar
information.
In cooperation with University of Illinois Center of Excellence for Airport Technology, the
Port of Seattle (Port) has deployed three Accipiter radars at the Seattle Tacoma
International Airport (SEA). The AR2, comprised of two separate radars, are operating at
the southeast end of the airfield from the roof top of the Airport Office Building (AOB).
The AR2 is optimized to detect and track bird activity at higher elevations (> 120 m) and
at out to greater distances (> 7.4 km) than the AR1. The AR1, a ground-based
deployment, is positioned midway along and between the Tango taxiway and Runway
34/16R (Figure 1). We selected the AR1 for this survey because this system employs an
array style antenna that provides the best coverage of the lower elevations of the airfield
where our observations are typically focused for wildlife hazard detection and abatement
activities. Near the airfield, the AR1 display had relatively less interfering reflective
clutter caused by large buildings and tall vegetation compared to the AR2 that used
parabolic dish (pencil beam) antennas. AR1 wireless connectivity to the Port’s internal
computer network was achieved by transmitting data between the AR1 midfield trailer
and a receiving antenna mounted on the roof of the AOB (near the AR2).
Remote radar access from our airport operations vehicle was provided using: (1) a centerconsole
mounted laptop computer as shown in Figure 2, (2) an external wireless USB cell
phone card, (3) Virtual Private Network (VPN) software to gain access to the Port’s
computer network, and (4) Virtual Network Computing (VNC) viewing software to
remote in to the host computer that supported the AR1. The two types of display
software were the Accipiter Digital Radar Processor (DRP) and the Google Earth Client
(GEC).
Although Accipiter intended the DRP software to be used primarily by the radar engineer
responsible for system monitoring and optimization, we found this software best suited
our needs because both plots and tracks were displayed and updated more frequently.
The advantage of the DRP software is it continually displays both plots (probable targets)
and tracks (confirmed targets) simultaneously. The use of the GEC software had the
advantage of integrating all track data from all three radars into one display plus a mode
to quickly playback the preceding hour of activity for viewing. The GEC display used