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

hour period from a single location to illustrate the capture of diurnal activity patterns, plus the
plots and tracks data for a 3-month period to illustrate the capture of seasonal activity patterns.
We proposed to plot the number of birds per unit time (e.g., hour) over these two intervals to
illustrate this capability.
3.1.2.2.2 Scheduled, Unattended Sampling Events [PB2.2]
Another advantage of digital avian radar systems is that they provide “unattended” operation.
Not only can the processor automatically detect and track targets, but the entire system can
operate without human intervention – except for routine maintenance. To illustrate this latter
capability, we proposed to demonstrate that not only could the system operate unattended, but
that it could be pre-programmed in advance to power-up the radar hardware on a specified date
and time, record plots and tracks data for a specified period of time, and then power-down the
radar hardware without an operator being present to perform these functions.
3.1.2.2.3 Sampling Controllable By Remote Operator [PB3.2]
Another dimension of unattended operations is the ability to have a human operator control the
radar much as we did in Criterion PB2.2, but to do it remotely. We proposed to demonstrate that
this capability is “Achievable” by issuing a series of commands to the radar from a remote
workstation over a communications network, capturing screen images to show the commands we
issued were executed by the radar, and the corresponding effects of these commands had on the
radar data processing.
3.1.2.2.4 Provides Spatial Distributions of Birds over Periods Of Time [PB4.2]
As noted in Criterion PB1.2 and elsewhere, the ability to playback archived plots and track data
and save spatial representations of target activity over user-definable periods of time (i.e., “track
histories”) is a powerful tool for both natural resources management and aircraft safety
applications of avian radar systems. We designed Criterion PB4.2 to demonstrate this capability
by generating a series of 24-hour track histories from the same radar during different seasons of
the year.
3.1.2.2.5 Provides Spatial Distributions of Birds Overlaid on Maps [PB5.2]
Whereas Criterion PB4.2 was designed to demonstrate the ability to generate plots of the
temporal distributions of bird activity at a given location, Criterion PB5.2 was designed to
demonstrate generating spatial maps of bird activity at a facility over a specified period of time.
3.1.2.2.6 Provides Bird Tracks in Format Suitable for GIS [PB6.2]
While the Accipiter® avian radar systems come with a robust set of data analysis and
visualization tools, some users will want to transfer the data from the avian radar into third-party
products for further processing and display. For that reason, the avian radar system should
provide the option to generate output data formats that are compatible with existing industry
standards. We designed Criterion PB6.2 to demonstrate that the Accipiter® systems the IVAR
project evaluated can output data in the Keyhole Markup Language (KML) format used by many
geographic information systems (GIS), notably Google Earth, for both both real-time and static
displays.
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