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Title:
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Runway Wake Vortex, Crosswind, and Visibility Detection with a Scintillometer at Schiphol Airport
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Author(s):
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Dinther, D. van; Hartogensis, O.K.; Holtslag, A.A.M.
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Published by:
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Publication date:
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ECN
Environment & Energy Engineering
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3-11-2015
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ECN report number:
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Document type:
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ECN-W--15-032
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Article (scientific)
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Number of pages:
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21
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Published in: Boundary-Layer Meteorology (Springer Netherlands), , 2015, Vol.Volume 157, Issue 3, p.481-499.
Abstract:
We evaluate the performance and investigate the capability of a scintillometer
to detect wake vortices, crosswind and visibility near an airport runway. An experiment is
carried out at Schiphol airport (Amsterdam, TheNetherlands), where an optical scintillometer
is positioned alongside a runway. An algorithm is developed to detect wake vortices, and also
the strength of the wake vortex, from the variance in the scintillation signal. The algorithm
shows promising results in detecting wake vortices and their strengths during the night.
During the day, the scintillometer signal is dominated by environmental turbulence and wake
vortices are no longer detectable. The crosswind measured by the scintillometer is compared
with wind-speed and wind-direction data at the airport. Our results show that, after applying
an outlier filter, the scintillometer is able to measure the crosswind over the short time period
of 3 s required for aviation applications. The outlier filter does not compromise the capability
of the scintillometer to obtain the maximum 3 s crosswind over a 10-min time frame correctly.
Finally, a transmission method is used to obtain the visibility from the scintillometer signal,
which is then compared with that obtained from a visibility sensor. The scintillometer is able
to identify periods of low visibility correctly, although it shows a high amount of scatter
around the exact visibility value.
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