WEB-8700 WEATHER WEB REMOTE OBSERVATION SYSTEM

The Weather WebÔ Remote Observation System (WxWEB) provides emergency response teams with real time meteorological parameters from multiple, spatially-separated locations. It can be rapidly deployed and provides a robust and fully automated system for continuous unattended wind observations.

Data from the Weather Web can feed numerical weather prediction models such as HPAC to provide decision-makers with life-saving information about the direction of chem-bio plumes. Weather Web is based on networking and compatible with industry standards.

Real time data supplants the range of traditional human observations by automating manually intensive tasks. Weather Webs let personnel perform more important value-added tasks, and helps to eliminates subjectivity of human observers. In perilous situations, such as NBC attacks, it permits human personnel to leave affected areas for safer ground.

Checks status of TCP/IP network links

Acquires and displays real time wind data

Processes sky/cloud imager results

Integrates with HPAC runs

Once remote sensor data is collected into YESDAQ, users can access it in real time via:

A built-in Web server that provides access through any Java-enabled Internet Web browser both as raw text and graphically via the DVE for each instrument type.

ODBC and JDBC drivers, which let you connect to the YESDAQ database and use third-party tools such as Matlab, Splus, IDL, or Crystal Reports to perform sophisticated analysis tasks (for example, cross-instrument data fusion, statistics, or linking to your own custom Java or MFC applications.)

YESDAQ is based upon MySQL, a licensed open-source technology that is highly reliable and well tested. Your data are not locked up in a proprietary system. When you direct your Web browser to data collected by a particular instrument, you are actually making live SQL requests into the database. Queries are then plotted via the instrument’s DVE component to let you wade through data in a variety of ways. Industry-standard ODBC and JDBC links let you use any number of third-party tools to perform specialized down stream data analysis, forecasting or sensor data fusion tasks. This flexible architecture lets you expand your data processing capabilities by adopting newer and better tools as software and networking technology improves. Other native programming interfaces are supported, including Perl.

Because it is based on TCP/IP protocols, the system leverages the power of the Internet to both collect and distribute real time data from remote sites to users. Three basic topologies are supported: a single data type/instrument type with a single central server, mixed data types/instrument types with a central server, or multiple data types and several replicated servers. Managing any geographically distributed network requires careful planning and execution, as well as user training. In its simplest form, a metropolitan area can be covered by several dozen surface RadioMet sensors that are RF linked back to a central receiver and display workstation. However, more complex configurations are possible, using either different types of sensors (heterogeneous) or wider geographical coverage (homogeneous) topologies. The following shows a centrally managed wide area network of several surface sensor types.

The next figure shows a distributed but homogenous network of sensors of the same type, centrally managed.

The next figure shows a distributed military weather network collecting data from multiple instrument types and replicating data across multiple YESDAQ servers in the middle east, England and the US that are located close to end-user, downstream applications such as HPAC.

In this worldwide example, both Monterey CA, and Omaha NB forecast centers have YESDAQ hosts, with remote hosts at RAF Croughton in the UK managing a local Total Sky Imager and launcher, a host in Saudi Arabia managing a fleet of ARL launchers throughout the Middle East, and aboard a Navy aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Such a network can feed surface data in real time to existing weather prediction models and other no-casting forecast tools. Data fusion ranging from simple calculation of wind chill all the way to Total Sky Imager-based determination of winds at the cloud base are now possible.

The Weather Web’s underlying YESDAQ software has three primary software components: Service Manager, Database service, and Application/Web service.

Once sensor data is in the Weather Web’s YESDAQ repository, you use the Data Visualization Engine to browse it graphically. DVE components such as the Skew T chart viewer provide visual data browsing for each type of sensor/instrument, allowing for specialized data displays across multiple sensor and data types.

Core Wind Sensor Technologies

Rarely will you find a situation where you have all the responding players collocated in a chemical release scenario. In fact, location of weather forecasters, contaminant dispersion experts, and users of their predictions may be changing often during a chemical release response. Communications connectivity between players in such a dynamic environment must be rapidly re-configurable for all to maintain situational awareness. The USAF uses the Joint Battlespace Infosphere (JBI) offers the means for the needed rapidly re-configurable networks. The JBI is a high-level publish/subscribe software networking protocol which dynamically handles changes in user location. In this application, JBI integrates weather and contaminant dispersion experts with the users of their predictions in a C2 environment. The First Look Plume Analysis JBI client obtains the forecast and current observations from the Weather JBI client to select an estimated plume extent from a diverse set of pre-run Hazard Prediction Assessment Capability (HPAC) analyses for quick retrieval of plume prediction information closest to current conditions.

The initial response to a chemical weapon attack is when the decisions most affect the outcome and when there is the least amount of information on which to make these critical decisions. To be useful, information has to be accurate and must be delivered to the right people. When dealing with chemical weapon effects, weather forecasters and contaminant dispersion experts need to work cooperatively to develop an accurate forecast of where the chemicals will be transported and deposited over the next several hours. Because of the dynamic situation associated with a chemical attack, these two groups may not be collocated. Additionally, their locations may change during the crisis. This would necessitate a change in information flow to route information to new users who previously did not require it or to the same users at different locations. Once the dispersion forecast is available it needs to be quickly disseminated to many users with continual updates that accurately reflect the changing situation. The solution to overcoming these difficulties is found in a loosely coupled dynamically (re)configurable information system that provides connectivity between real time weather observations and a chemical hazard analysis capability.

The DoD’s Joint Battlespace Infosphere (JBI) provides the flexible conduit to dynamically handle these changes in information needs. The JBI, a high-level publish/subscribe software networking protocol, is used to integrate weather software and contaminant dispersion software in a C2 environment. It provides a flexible networking mechanism for maintaining the currency of the weather and chemical dispersion extent while keeping mobile responders and commanders in contact. A real-time estimate of chemical plume extent makes sense only if there are real-time weather observations to use as inputs to the analysis. The Weather Hazard Client has been developed to publish current weather observation to subscribers that are part of the JBI. The First Look Plume Analysis Client works in conjunction with the Weather Hazard Client to provide a first estimate of a chemical plume extent. This JBI Client uses chemical type, terrain, ground moisture and wind speed to choose the appropriate HPAC simulator analysis, from a diverse set of pre-run HPAC scenarios. This initial estimate will lack the accuracy of a detailed HPAC analysis but will supply the results immediately. This will be followed by a full HPAC simulation, which will take longer, but be more accurate.

Scenarios mentioned below include situations that could be equally applicable in both military and civilian domains. A military scenario might involve predicting the spread of contaminants in the air after a strike on a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Production Facility. A hazardous chemical plume prediction, in this case, is necessary in mission planning to (a) ensure minimum danger to noncombatants near the facility, and (b) prepare for the possibility of a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission into or near the contaminated area if the attacking aircraft is shot down near the plant and the pilot has to be extracted. This second point is of particular interest since a rescue helicopter crew’s ability to directly track visual cues (concerning its own security, non-radio signaling from the downed pilot, etc.) is considerably impaired by chemical suits. In a civilian context, an explosion inside a chemical plant could release toxic contaminants into the air, producing a plume so hazardous that people near the plant need to be evacuated by emergency response teams. This is analogous to a military unit coming under chemical attack requiring a rapid estimate of plume extent for evacuation planning.

Default HPAC Parameters must be carefully considered. The choice of north as the default wind direction in the collection of typical situations represented by the HPAC runs is arbitrary, since the plume extent’s current orientation is determined from the wind direction in the subscribed weather data. Direction north was chosen simply because it is represented as 0 degrees angular displacement. By similar reasoning, the default location of the chemical incident in each of the typical case HPAC runs is 0 degrees longitude and 0 degrees latitude. The correct longitude and latitude of the WMD production facility is published in C2 plans. The adjustment of pre-run HPAC plume data for current conditions involves the angular rotation and geographic translation of the HPAC data, each item of which is another point value of concentration. The choice of location (0, 0) for the HPAC runs is motivated by more than just selection of default values. Since a rotation must be performed to orient the data to correspond to current wind direction, the rotation can be correctly done only at the coordinate system origin, followed by translation of the data to the location of the chemical incident. Arbitrary selection of any other chemical incident location for the HPAC runs would require an additional translation to (0, 0) before rotation and translation (in the opposite direction) again. The rotation-translation matrix formula takes into account the combining of two different systems for angular displacement, one system used by meteorologists for the direction from which prevailing wind originates, and the other used by mathematicians, consistent with classical definitions of trigonometric functions. Since the significance of the trigonometric functions is derived from a change in wind direction to account for current conditions, a clockwise displacement from north is transformed into the equivalent counterclockwise displacement from east.

The Weather Hazard Client functions as a local publisher of weather information. This Client automatically downloads imagery (GIF) and textual documents (html) from the Air Force Weather Agency at Offutt AFB on an hourly basis. The files are only retrieved, however, if they are more recent than the ones already obtained. These retrieved files are saved in a specified directory on the local file system of the Weather Hazard Client computer where they are available for publication to the JBI. To publish a particular weather image and/or airfield forecast/observation (html docs), the relevant set of XML metadata is selected using the Client’s GUI and the "Register" button is pressed. This notifies the lookup service that the Weather JBI Client has this product available. The "Publish" button completes the publication process. Once pressed, the user is prompted to select the directory where products associated with that metadata are stored. The associated product is then read in from that directory, wrapped as a JBI information object, and published every time a product of that type is downloaded from AFWA. Anyone with a JBI Client can subscribe to imagery and documents of interest and receive updates every time a new product is published.

For a chemical incident response, the First Look Plume Analysis Client subscribes to the airfield weather observation object for the nearest airfield to the site of the release. This observation includes the wind speed and direction information needed to make the proper selection of a representative plume from the pre-run HPAC data. By judicious choice of typical scenarios, pre-run hazard analysis and associated graphics can be used to quickly predict, in an offensive mode, the effect of a strike on a WMD production facility, or in defensive mode, to warn military units of the damage expected from an attack in progress.

Met parameters: Wind Speed and Direction, Air temperature, % Relative Humidity (or dew point), Atmospheric Pressure; (optional alpha/gamma/beta radiation)

Wind Range: Wind speed: 0-60 m/s (134 mph)

Wind Gust survival: 100 m/s (220 mph)

Wind Direction Azimuth limit: 360° mechanical, 355° electrical (5° open)

Wind Speed Accuracy: ±0.5 m/s (1 mph)

Wind Direction Accuracy: ±5 degrees

Starting Threshold: Propeller: 1 m/s (2.2 mph)

Wind Direction Threshold: 1.7 m/s (3.8 MPH)

RF Telemetry

Link: Each station communicates cooperatively to a single base station

Frequency: operating in the 400-450 MHZ range

Modulation method: Frequency Modulation

Data format: Manchester encoding

Mechanical

Mounting: Directional antennas with bracket capable of handrail or wall mounting

Receiver: RS-232 interface, Windows Display

Software

HPAC interface: Conforms to DTRA requirements for real time wind data ingest

Managing data from multiple types of imaging and in situ sensors over an extended period produces a sizable data repository. In the weather web all data can be collected and stored for later display or further analysis in YESDAQ, a mySQL-based open source relational database with ODBC/JDBC connectivity to other downstream applications such as HPAC.

Yankee Environmental Systems is the only provider of this technology that integrates with HPAC for the emergency management community. Portions of this technology were developed and tested by the Army and Air Force for force protection applications and have been adapted for civilian use.

For more information, please contact YES technical sales.