HF-radar technology is the ultimate key technology in oceanographic coastal surveillance, for this reason it is often named Ocean Radar. This shore based technology allows to monitor ocean parameter like surface currents, waves and wind direction without installing any sensor in the water. This makes this technology very robust, easy to maintain and reliable.
The acquired data are typically used to enhance the quality of current forecasting at the entrance of harbours or around off-shore installations. Furthermore these data are used to get better drift predictions for Search and Rescue applications or for environmental protection. The very reliable and fast systems are perfect suited for time sensitive applications like disaster warning, in particular for Tsunami Detection.
The ocean radar technology makes use of the quite high conductivity of the saline ocean waters. This conductive surface guides the radar signal around the curvature of the earth far behind the horizon up to 350 km.
As system integration and project management partner, RES works together with the global market leader in high quality HF radar systems HELZEL MESSTECHNIK GmbH. More than 150 of their “WERA ©” systems are installed worldwide.
TEC 1-B: – Ship tracking HF-radar, the long range supplement for coastal surveillance systems
The advantage of the HF-radar technology for ship detection and tracking is the extreme long range capability (200 NM) and it’s robustness against rain. While micro wave based radar systems are limited by the line of sight and are strongly affected by rain fall, the shore based HF radar keeps it’s high performance even at rainy days and it can reach out more than 200 NM.
Even stealth ships are detectable with HF radar!
For any coastal surveillance system the HF radar is the perfect supplement for a MW radar network.
As system integration and project management partner, RES works together with HELZEL MESSTECHNIK GmbH. HELZEL works in this field of over-the-horizon-radar technology since 2006 and published serval scientific papers about this application. Since 2016 HELZEL offers their OTHR system dedicated for the monitoring of exclusive economic zones (EEZ).
TEC 1-C: – Multi purpose HF-radar systems
As a system integration and project management partner, we can merge these two applications in one dual-use system. Typically the oceanographic application software can run on an OTHR system as well. Furthermore the OTHR usually consists of two nested radar systems, a long and a medium range system operating at two different frequencies. In such a configuration the medium range radar typically provides better oceanographic data and can be used in a WERA network.
Below are some impressions about NON-CLASSIFIED projects only.