Operation of the Ultra-Wideband Ice Radar requires experienced personnel on board the aircraft.

The high total weight of the Ultra-Wideband Ice Radar system strongly limits flight distances.

Summary

The Ultra-wideband ice radar is a 150-600 MHz VHF radar used for penetration of thick ice masses. It offers high power, fine range resolution, and very good cross-track resolution.


Manufacturer Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS)
Model UWB-Ice (Standard)
Serial No. n/a
Type radar system
REGISTRY-Link ↪ REGISTRY (6809)


Contacts

Name Institution Role
Daniela Jansen Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research Device Contact

Components and Specifications

The UWB Ice system comprises the antenna array and several rack mount units. Four 1000 W amplifiers and four 500 W amplifiers are housed by two racks.  The main radar rack is used for installation of the electronics such as 2 National Instruments PXI 1085 units,  1 National Instruments PXI 1075 unit, 1 waveform generator (DDS), a server and a T/R chassis (see images above). The system excluding the antenna array and the  racks themselves weighs about 340 kg. The LH wing antenna array and the right wing antenna array weigh ~205kg each while the fuselage antenna array weighs about 215 kg. The system additionally requires rack installations of 115 VAC / 60Hz inverters, two  115 VAC / 60Hz UPS, one 230 VAC UPS and a S.M. server which together amount to 165 kg. The high total weight thus strongly limits flight distances.

Position

InfoAntennas are installed under the wings and under the fuselage. Electronic devices and data aquisition are installed within racks in the aircraft cabin.
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Data logging, storage and archiving

Logged parameter

No parameters available.

Rawdata storage on board

Data archiving on land
Documentation