Radar Focus Group Zeroes in on Data Quality

 
Published: 29 February 2008

On the roof of the radar instrument shelter at the ARM Southern Great Plains site, antennas for the W-band ARM Cloud Radar (rectangular white box) and millimeter wavelength cloud radar (conical cylinder) send data to their respective computer systems inside the shelter.

In 2007, ARM established a Radar Focus Group to address strategic needs related to the use of radars as a key component of the ARM instrument suite. Based on needs identified by this group, a smaller team of science, engineering, and data quality staff met in early February in Santa Barbara, California, to determine methods that the Data Quality (DQ) Office can use to routinely monitor operation of the user facility’s current cloud radars—namely, the millimeter wavelength cloud radar (MMCR) and W-band ARM Cloud Radar (WACR). The team’s goal is to develop additional tools that automatically notify operations and engineering staff when problems with the radar occur, or ideally, recognize trends that allow engineering staff to address problems prior to data compromise.

In preparation for the meeting, ARM engineering staff independently processed all of the existing MMCR data—about 2 terabytes—to try and identify known periods of problems with specific parameters recorded in the radar data. Some of the data analyses showed problems, but other problems were not easily identifiable. The team plans to establish procedures to routinely monitoring a selection of these parameters and train the DQ Office analysts in the identification of problems associated with the radar’s hardware or software.

During the meeting, the group also identified the need to combine data in the operations databases along with handwritten notes recorded by engineering staff. These will be matched by date to the specific parameters that will be plotted on a graph to help show trends. One idea discussed was to overlay labels on the data, with a companion “popup” table that explains the various labels. The group is hoping to implement the ideas discussed during the meeting over the next few years. In particular, they plan to apply any advancements in this area to the MMCRs located at Manus and Nauru Island, which, due to their remoteness, are visited less often by technical personnel.