An integrated automatic aviation meteorological instrument system at C. S. I. airport, Mumbai

An ‘Integrated Automatic Aviation Meteorological Instrument System’ (IAAMS) is installed atMumbai International Airport in May-2008. The system is State-of-the-Art and has features like automatic generation ofaviation reports; METAR / SPECI, AFTN (Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network) connectivity fordissemination of aviation weather reports to user agencies and ATIS (Automatic Terminal Interface System) forautomatic broadcasting of aviation weather reports to airborne pilot. Besides these features system is having facility toenter manually weather parameter for which sensors are not available such as cloud coverage, past weather, presentweather for generation of aviation reports. The system meets the requirements of operational desirable accuracy ofInternational Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, 2004) and vector averaging of winds as per World MeteorologicalOrganization guidelines (WMO, 1992). The paper is mainly focusing on the different technical features of this newsystem along with its observational response in last one year at Mumbai airport. Similar system has been installed at othermajor airports; New Delhi (4 sites), Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Amritsar, Jaipur, and Guwahati. The system issupplied and installed by Telvent Company, Australia.

An indigenous state-of-the-art High Wind Speed Recording (HWSR) system for coastal meteorological observatories

The continuous and accurate monitoring of wind speed and direction is of utmost importance to weatherman, particularly during the cyclonic storms. Wind monitoring also helps the meteorologists in tracking the cyclone accurately and estimating their devastating potential. One major disadvantage of all the existing wind monitoring and storing systems is their huge consumption of power, and hence are not suitable during cyclonic storms due to mains power supply failure. So an attempt has been made by the authors to design and develop a low cost, low power, more accurate and maintenance free High Wind Speed Recording (HWSR) System for the coastal meteorological observatories along the East and West Coasts of India. One such system after successful field trials have been installed at Meteorological Office, Puri in the Orissa coast, and 19 more stations are proposed along East and West Coasts of India. The system meets the operational accuracy requirements and vector averaging of wind data as recommended by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO, 1992). The system design aspects and scope for expansion have been presented in this paper.

Representing the World

This chapter explores the neurobiology of representations, and more specifically how nervous systems represent in the occurrent sense. It first provides an overview of the basic anatomy and physiology of the mammalian visual system before discussing how neurons encode information by drawing on the comparison between “grandmother” coding and distributed coding. In particular, it considers vector coding vs. local coding and the conceptual fecundity of “state space,” along with the question of whether nervous systems honor at all the distinction between vectors of activation and matrices for processing. The chapter proceeds by analyzing the shape-from-shading model, computational models of stereo vision, hyperacuity, and vector averaging.

Aspects of the Correlation between Sodar and Mast Instrument Winds

On a uniform terrain site, differences between a sodar and a mast-mounted cup anemometer will arise because of turbulent fluctuations and wind components being measured in different spaces, and because of the inherent difference between scalar and vector averaging. This paper develops theories for turbulence-related random fluctuations resulting from finite sampling rates and sampling from spatially distributed volumes. Coefficients of determination (R2) are predicted comparable to those obtained in practice. It is shown that more than two-thirds of the reduction in R2 arises from differences in the winds measured by mast instruments and by sodars, rather than by sodar errors: both instruments are measuring accurately, but just not in the same place or at the same time. The result is that sodars being used operationally should be able to measure winds to a root-mean-square accuracy of around 2%.