Transcript Installing TITAN on the UAE Machines

Proposal to upgrade
infrastructure and radars
and stream data through
UNIDATA back to NCAR.
R. T Bruintjes, M. Moncrieff, A Laing and others
Africa meeting
July 2006
Africa Programs
Burkina Faso infrastructure
Radar installation on top of control tower and King Air B-200 and hangar
facilities at the airport in Ouagadougou
Weather radar and project
locations
Radar locations
Burkina Faso and Mali radar locations.
Local weather services and universities
Recent Work
•
•
Unstable and unreliable internet and local area network at the
Programme SAAGA offices in Ouagadougou. The network and
internet connections went down several times during the day and once
for a period of 24 hours. The problems were associated with wiring
problems, router and firewall problems and not necessarily with the
internet connection as such. The network and internet connections in
Bobo Dialloso were found to be highly reliable and working fine. The
problems in Ouagadougou could also be associated with frequent
power outages at the Programme SAAGA office during my one-week
stay.
Unstable power supply and frequent power outages at the
Programme SAAGA offices in Ouagadougou. Although a standby
generator is available for power supply when normal electrical power
outages occur it always took 30 seconds to a minute to change from
normal to standby power. The UPS units that supply power to the radar
and TITAN/CIDD computers during this transition are small and on
days when several of these power outages occurred the UPS batteries
were drained and were not able to continue to provide power to the
computers and equipment. This resulted in systems losing power and
rebooting after power was reinstated. This also resulted in loss of data.
Recent Work (cont.)
•
•
Incomplete installation of Bobo Dialloso radar. Unfortunately, the
EEC radar engineer conducting the installation of the new radar in
Bobo Dialloso got sick and had to return to the U.S. before the
installation of the radar was complete. We were thus not able to feed
data from the new radar to the TITAN/CIDD computer in Bobo Dialloso
and to Ouagadougou. We should be able to test this remotely from the
U.S. when the installation is complete.
Problems with the radar in Ouagadougou. The radar in
Ouagadougou is not well calibrated and maintained. The reflectivity
levels on the EDGE and therefore on TITAN/CIDD are underestimating
reflectivity levels by somewhere between 10 to 20dBz according to our
observations. In addition, no Doppler velocity data is received. A full
calibration and evaluation of the radar is needed. It is essential that the
radars are well maintained and calibrated in the future if they will be
used for guiding operations and in the evaluation of the Programme
cloud seeding experiments. The same applies for the new radar in
Bobo Dialloso. Accurate time synchronization between the radars and
all associated computers are also essential.
Proposed changes
•
•
•
Re-design and upgrade network and internet infrastructure at
Programme SAAGA offices in Ouagadougou. We would suggest
obtaining the services of a qualified expert to assess and evaluate
the current and future network and internet requirements of the
Programme SAAGA offices in Ouagadougou and to re-design the
network. I would suggest that the buildings are also re-wired
because many of the current network connectors and some of the
equipment are unreliable.
Upgrade UPS units and electrical power infrastructure at the
Programme SAAGA offices in Ouagadougou. In the short-term it
is important to upgrade the UPS power units to able to provide
sufficient power to the computers during frequent power failures. In
the long-term we would suggest that the infrastructure be upgraded
to provide a more reliable and stable electrical power environment
for the Programme SAAGA offices in Ouagadougou.
Maintenance and calibration of radars and computer equipment.
It is essential that the radars are well calibrated and maintained to
support the operations of Programme SAAGA. The current
Ouagadougou radar is not well calibrated and seems to have
problems with the Doppler velocities. It is recommended that a plan
is developed for the maintenance and calibration of the radars and
computers. This is extremely important for the operations of
Programme SAAGA.
Africa Initiative Proposal
Activities
• Finalize implementation of radars and
software (Current funding)
• Provide expert in networking to evaluate and
help design reliable network (New funding,
travel and support, 1 month)
• Network Mali and Burkina Faso radars and
potentially MIT Niger radar (new funding,
software engineer, 1month)
• Stream data to UNIDATA (new funding, 1
month per year software engineer, UNIDATA)
Proposal Activities (cont.)
• Burkina Faso has recently purchased two EEC C-band
radars. As part of a sub-contract with EEC, NCAR is
already working with Burkina Faso to provide upgraded
software for one of the radars.
• Propose to upgrade the two C-band weather radars by
providing a new receiver with Doppler capability including
analysis software (1 month radar engineer, 1 month
software engineer, hardware (~50k).
• Education and training (3 people from Burkina Faso and
Mali will visit NCAR for training, current funding; GLOBE,
COMET, UCAR E&O, START, ASMET, etc?)
• Workshop in Fall or early winter in West Africa (Sahel other
west African countries using existing networks).
Summary
Water resources, Severe weather, agriculture, air quality, health
impacts.
Problem
• Water resource management
• Air Quality and health impacts
• Flash and local flooding and human impacts
• Seasonal (agriculture)
Challenges
• Infrastructure building
• Low-tech approach
• Education
Opportunities
• Africa Initiative
• UCAR capabilities