RFI_Weather Radar Technologies and Concepts 1.pdf

WEATHER RADAR TECHNOLOGIES AND CONCEPTS OF OPERATIONS FOR THE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

GENERAL NOTICE

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS) is conducting market research on the technological capabilities of vendors to support the NWS Doppler weather radar surveillance system. Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 10 requires the Government to conduct market research before developing new requirements documents for an acquisition. Results of market research will be used to determine whether qualified sources exist. The information obtained from industry’s responses to this notice may be used in the development of an acquisition strategy and future request for proposal (RFP).

The Government does not intend to award a contract based on this market research or otherwise pay for information received. This request for information (RFI) is issued solely for information, planning purposes, and market research; it does not constitute an RFP or a promise to issue an RFP. This market research does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service. NOAA will not pay for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement, or any follow-up information requests. Not responding to this announcement does not preclude participation in any future RFP. All submissions become the property of the Government and will not be returned. If a solicitation is released, it will be posted on the System for Award Management (SAM) https://sam.gov.

The North American Industry Classification System code for this RFI is 541330 – Engineering Services.

BACKGROUND

Radars are a critical asset in achieving the NWS weather ready mission, providing atmospheric data and enabling forecasters to improve the lead times and accuracy of warnings for high-impact weather events for the protection of life and property. The current weather radar program, the Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD), is one of the most impactful NOAA observational programs, supporting all weather mission service areas including severe, winter, aviation, and flood warnings. However, the current system has exceeded its original 20-year design life. A Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) was conducted to address the top failure rate components and major radar sub- components of current radars. Whereas SLEP was successful in extending the life of some elements of the radar network, there are still more than 4,000 components that face obsolescence and supply chain challenges. As a result, NEXRAD is at an increasing risk of long or possible permanent failures across its network. The failure to build and implement a replacement would leave the Nation without continuity of radar data, significantly deteriorating the ability to plan, prepare, and respond to environmental disasters.

The NWS wants to continue, and improve upon, delivering one of the most impactful observing systems in the Nation. The NWS’s goal is to design and deploy the future generation network of weather radars that will:

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• Ensure continuity of radar data: Prevent disruption in the continuity of the Nation’s weather radars due to aging infrastructure, which would severely impact the ability to predict and respond to weather-related emergencies.

• Address current gaps in radar coverage: Expand radar coverage particularly at low levels, to better serve all communities, especially those that are vulnerable and underserved and meet Department of Commerce’s goals to provide the Nation with timely and accurate environmental forecasts and warnings to all communities.

• Improve radar performance and capabilities: Create a network of radars that are more flexible and scalable to adapt to changing needs and technological advancements, providing a mix of observations for higher impact missions and supporting new business models and technology that, collectively, will result in improvements to radar capabilities and increased data accuracy.

NOAA is exploring options for the future of weather surveillance Doppler radars located in the continental United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and possibly other locations. The current program of record is a tri-agency effort consisting of NWS, Federal Aviation Administration, and Department of Defense participation. It includes 159 Weather Surveillance Radar, 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) radars (deployed in the United States and territories, Korea, and Japan), maintenance and operations, product generation, and its data transfer. These radars form the backbone of NWS real-time weather monitoring capabilities.

The combination of the NEXRAD radar system and other environmental sensors, including ground-based instruments such as the Automated Surface Observing System and satellite sensors such as the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, provide detection of developing and approaching weather events. Due to the estimated time to plan for the future generation of radars, it is crucial to initiate NWS now to avoid future gaps in radar coverage. NOAA is exploring existing and cutting-edge technologies and system concepts to advance future weather surveillance Doppler radar capabilities.

REQUESTED INFORMATION

General

1. Doppler Weather Radar Capability: What commercial radars has your organization developed with weather detection capabilities (e.g., mechanically scanned, electronically scanned, reflector, phased array, etc.) are available or under development? What is their current Technology Readiness Level (TRL) (see Appendix A)? What are their frequency bands of operation? What are your plans for maturing any technology not yet at TRL 6 and the notional timeline for reaching full maturity? What are the current and anticipated future deployment/commissioning timelines, including installation and testing?

2. Improved Radar Technologies: Describe what radar technologies your organization has developed that can improve upon the current challenges and issues facing the current NEXRAD WSR-88D radar network. These technologies can include software and hardware solutions. In addressing this question, please provide information related to current maturity levels of these technologies. These technologies can include, but are not limited to:

• Reducing the volume scan period that can lead to an increase in lead times and lower false alarm rates for severe weather, flash floods, or tornadoes, with no degradation in the data quality (e.g., signal-to-noise ratio, resolution) currently provided by the WSR-88D (see Appendix D).

• Achieving low cross polarization levels for dual polarization systems that are needed for good differential reflectivity measurements.

• Low elevation scanning, elevation angles less than 0.5 degrees, while mitigating ground clutter, man-made obstacles, wind farms, and other ground-based interference.

• More flexible scan strategies than the current NEXRAD system, which scans one elevation tilt at a time and takes several minutes to cover the full scan volume range. These can include scan strategies that allow for targeted scans that, for example, can conduct rapid elevation scans in a narrow sector.

• If using multiple simultaneous beams, the ability to maintain low interference between the beams, so that measurements from one beam do not corrupt the measurements from an adjacent beam.

• Ability to incorporate data from other meteorological sensors, such as satellites, to dynamically adapt radar scans for evolving storm conditions.

• Ability to derive quantitative precipitation estimates.

3. Phased Array Radar (PAR) Technology: What experience do you have developing or testing PAR technology for weather? What is your level of experience and what do you assess the TRL of your technologies? What research have you conducted into the effectiveness of utilizing a stationary and/or rotating PAR system for weather radar applications?

● What frequency bands have you investigated?

● Have you investigated the effectiveness of a system that mechanically rotates in azimuth and electronically scans in elevation?

● Have you investigated the effectiveness of a system that mechanically rotates in azimuth but also electronically scans in both azimuth and elevation?

● What performance improvements, such as reduced volume scan times, have you demonstrated compared to the current WSR-88D system?

● What technical challenges have you encountered, such as calibration, maintaining low cross polarization, etc.?

● What is the maturity level of the technologies?

● What is the cost per radar? Are there potential economies of scale for the purchase of 100+ radars? How much per unit can be expected?

4. PAR Antenna Technology: What are the dimensions of a PAR antenna that can achieve the same effective beamwidth of the WSR-88D? Include the area and the number of radiating elements in your description. Attachment A contains the WSR-88D System Specifications.

5. Antenna Technology and Performance: If developing reflector antenna technology for weather radar applications, what are ways to reduce the volume update period? This may include forming multiple simultaneous, or near simultaneous, elevation beams that can cover a larger elevation sector than would otherwise be achieved with a single beam. If so, what is the cross polarization and beam-to-beam isolation achieved with these multiple beams? What other antenna technologies have you investigated for weather radar applications (e.g.: reflect array, space fed lens, reflector with a PAR feed, etc.)?

6. Improve Radial Velocity Measurements: What existing capabilities and products are available to improve radial velocity? What hardware improvements are planned and what software (for example, Artificial Intelligence) is being considered? Technologies can include, but are not limited to:

a. Ensuring folded velocities are properly de-aliased, clutter is removed, biological contamination is addressed, and accurate radial winds are available.

b. Multiple Pulse Repetition Frequencies.

c. Minimizing variance based on the number of samples.

d. Addressing wind turbine contamination without degrading the true weather signal.

7. Faster Volume Scanning: Is one minute or less volume coverage time with no degradation of the sensitivity, spatial resolution, or standard deviation of measurement for radar variable estimates feasible? What are the trade-offs of the faster volume coverage time in terms of data quality?

8. Maintenance and Repair Concepts: What options exist for weather radar maintenance (e.g., maintenance as a service), sparing, supply chain diversification, and service restoration? What are the best operations and sustainment practices that would be useful for future radars? What types of data collection should occur to maximize maintenance and sustainment effectiveness and minimize associated costs?

9. Operational Use of PAR: If you have PAR systems that are operational, where have they been used operationally? If you are not using PAR for weather, would you consider developing a PAR radar for weather? If yes, how long would it take and how much financial investment would be necessary?

10. Mobile Radar Technology and Operations:

a. Describe what mobile weather radar technologies your organization has developed. Provide information related to current capabilities and maturity levels of these technologies.

b. How could NWS best leverage your mobile weather radar technology? What would be the benefits to NWS and our stakeholders?

c. What would a high-level concepts of operations (CONOPS) look like for a possible NWS mobile weather radar capability?

d. How many mobile units would NWS need to procure to operate within your proposed CONOPS? What would be the associated rough order magnitude cost to procure? What would be the estimated annual cost to maintain?

RESPONSE FORMAT

Your company is requested to submit its response electronically by providing:

1. Company name, mailing address, overnight delivery address (if different from mailing address), cage code, SAM unique entity identification, point of contact, email address, and telephone number.

2. Business size and unique qualifiers (e.g. large, small, joint venture, 8(a), minority-owned, woman-owned, economically disadvantaged woman-owned, HUBZone, veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, Ability One).

3. Participation in a General Services Administration schedule and/or a government-wide acquisition contract. If so, provide the task order number(s), special item number(s) awarded, and/or schedule.

Responses to any or all information requested in this RFI is acceptable. Responses must be submitted in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. RFI responses are limited to 15 pages on standard US letter size 8-1/2 by 11-inch paper using either Times New Roman or Arial font, 12 point.

Existing commercial documentation and product literature can also be submitted separately and is not subject to a page limitation. Cover pages and contact information do not count against the page limit. Any supporting technical drawings/data should be as an appendix and does not count against the page limit. However, incorporated figures, charts, and images do count against the page limit.

This is a wide-ranging RFI. Be sure to include pertinent information, such as any current federal agencies using the technology, results of independent third-party testing, and/or anything else your company believes may support the Government’s understanding of this technology.

This RFI is the first of several future industry engagement opportunities for the Government to learn more about current and future weather radars, weather surveillance-related technology, and understand changing market dynamics as well as innovations that may impact future procurement strategies. Please continue to monitor https://sam.gov as opportunities are announced.

POSSIBLE INDUSTRY DAY

NOAA representatives may hold an Industry Day after this RFI has closed to provide a forum for further engagement. If an Industry Day were to be scheduled, any announcements will be posted on https://sam.gov.

In addition, holding any “one-on-one” meetings with industry will be at the Government’s discretion. Please monitor https://sam.gov for any additional information.

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RESPONSE SUBMISSION, DEADLINE, AND POINTS OF CONTACT

Responses shall be submitted via email to the Contracting Officer Kevin Buum, Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) Dan Hoffman, and Contract Specialist (CS) Holly Ferguson at Kevin.J.Buum@noaa.gov, Daniel.T.Hoffman@noaa.gov, and Holly.Ferguson@noaa.gov no later than September 6, 2024 at 1:00 PM CT.

The subject line of the submission email shall be formatted as follows:

“[Company Name] RFI Submission for NOAA WEATHER RADAR TECHNOLOGIES AND

CONCEPTS FOR FUTURE NWS RADARS”

Contact with Government personnel, other than points of contacts listed herein, by potential offerors or their employees regarding this RFI is strictly prohibited. Please do not submit any classified information.

QUESTIONS

Questions may be submitted via email to the Contracting Officer, COR, and CS at Kevin.J.Buum@noaa.gov, Daniel.T.Hoffman@noaa.gov, and Holly.Ferguson@noaa.gov no later than August 30, 2024 at 1:00 PM CT. Telephonic questions are not acceptable. Questions will be consolidated and answered at the Government’s discretion and posted to https://sam.gov.

APPENDICES & ATTACHMENTS

The following documents are provided for reference only and do not represent requirements for the future NWS Doppler weather radar surveillance systems.

Appendix A: Definitions of Technology Readiness Levels Appendix B: Baseline Radar Architecture Appendix C: Operations and Maintenance Baseline Appendix D: Data Products

Attachment A: WSR-88D System Specification Attachment B: WSR-88D Radar Site List Attachment C: NEXRAD Coverage Attachment D: NOAA/National Weather Service Radar Functional Requirements Attachment E: Market Research Overview mailto:Kevin.J.Buum@noaa.gov mailto:Daniel.T.Hoffman@noaa.gov mailto:Holly.Ferguson@noaa.gov mailto:Kevin.J.Buum@noaa.gov mailto:Daniel.T.Hoffman@noaa.gov mailto:Holly.Ferguson@noaa.gov

APPENDIX A – DEFINITIONS OF TECHNOLOGY READINESS LEVELS (TRL)

TRL 1 - Basic principles observed and reported: Transition from scientific research to applied research. Essential characteristics and behaviors of systems and architectures.

Descriptive tools are mathematical formulations or algorithms.

TRL 2 - Technology concept and/or application formulated: Applied research. Theory and scientific principles are focused on specific application areas to define the concept.

Characteristics of the application are described. Analytical tools are developed for simulation or analysis of the application.

TRL 3 - Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof-of-concept: Proof of concept validation. Active Research and Development is initiated with analytical and laboratory studies. Demonstration of technical feasibility using breadboard or brass board implementations that are exercised with representative data.

TRL 4 - Component/subsystem validation in laboratory environment: Standalone prototyping implementation and test. Integration of technological elements. Experiments with full-scale problems or data sets.

TRL 5 - System/subsystem/component validation in relevant environment: Thorough testing of prototyping in representative environment. Basic technology elements integrated with reasonably realistic supporting elements. Prototyping implementations conform to target environment and interfaces.

TRL 6 - System/subsystem model or prototyping demonstration in a relevant end-to-end environment: Prototyping implementations on full-scale realistic problems. Partially integrated with existing systems. Limited documentation available. Engineering feasibility fully demonstrated in actual system application.

TRL 7 - System prototyping demonstration in an operational environment: System prototyping demonstration in operational environment. The system is at or near scale of the operational system, with most functions available for demonstration and test. Well integrated with collateral and ancillary systems. Limited documentation available.

TRL 8 - Actual system completed and "network qualified" through test and demonstration in an operational environment: End of system development. Fully integrated with operational hardware and software systems. Most user documentation, training documentation, and maintenance documentation completed. All functionality tested in simulated and operational scenarios. Verification and Validation completed. Full operational demonstration.

TRL 9 - Actual system "network proven" through successful operations: Fully integrated with operational hardware/software systems. Actual system has been thoroughly demonstrated and tested in its operational environment. All documentation completed. Successful operational experience. Sustaining engineering support in place. System is ready for operations or has been operationally deployed in the environment.

APPENDIX B – BASELINE RADAR ARCHITECTURE

For the purposes of this announcement, NOAA is providing a baseline radar architecture for the existing NEXRAD system. This reference network is for planning purposes within this RFI. It serves as the baseline case against which variations can be assessed, but does not reflect future requirements that could affect radar coverage. The architecture consists of:

1. 146 S-Band Dual Polarization Doppler radars spaced across CONUS to cover major population centers, major airports and transportation infrastructure, major military installations, and other areas of critical infrastructure. All of these are rotating parabolic dishes.

2. 7 S-Band Dual Polarization Doppler radars spaced across Alaska to cover major

3. 4 S-Band Dual Polarization Doppler radars spaced across Hawaii to cover major

4. 1 S-Band Dual Polarization Doppler radar located in both Puerto Rico and Guam to cover major population centers, major airports and transportation infrastructure, major military installations, and other areas of critical infrastructure. These are both rotating parabolic

Figure 1: NEXRAD volume coverage below 10,000 feet for CONUS and outside the contiguous United States.

The baseline radar network will generally represent the achieved operational capabilities of the WSR-88D with dual polarization. A description of these capabilities including the data products and the measurement quality of these products is provided as Attachment D: NOAA/National Weather Service Radar Functional Requirements.

APPENDIX C – OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE BASELINE

For the purposes of this announcement, the following overview of NEXRAD operations and maintenance (O&M) activities is provided as a baseline. It serves as the baseline case against which concepts for improvement can be assessed, but does not reflect future O&M requirements.

NEXRAD currently uses radars that were designed and developed in the early 1990s and is currently under a Service Life Extension Program since 2015 to extend the life of the radars.

• Operations. The NWS Radar Operations Center located in Norman, Oklahoma provides 24x7 Help Desk support for all NEXRAD technical and/or operational issues. A mobile team is on-call to support outage restoration and/or troubleshoot issues in the field.

• Maintenance. Routine maintenance of NEXRAD is performed by electronic technicians assigned to Weather Forecast Offices nationwide. Technicians are responsible for executing system modifications, replacing components, and diagnosing technical issues.

• Repair. Failed parts are sent for repair to the National Reconditioning Center (NRC) in Kansas City, Missouri. If unable to fix the part themselves, the NRC ships it to the original equipment manufacturer.

APPENDIX D – DATA PRODUCTS

System bias

The radar hardware calibration must determine the measurement uncertainties related to the system hardware components as accurately as possible for all radar variables. Accurate system bias calculation ensures that observations accurately represent the returned signals for those variables.

WSR-88D capability, in the absence of clutter filtering:

• Reflectivity: 1 dBZ for target with true spectrum width of 4 m/s and SNR > 10 dB

• Velocity: 0.0 m/s for target with true spectrum width of 4 m/s and SNR > 8 dB

• Spectrum Width: 0.2 m/s for target with true spectrum width of 4 m/s and SNR > 10 dB

• Differential Reflectivity: 0.1 dB for target with true differential reflectivity (ZDR) of less than ±1 dB, true spectrum width of 2 m/s, Correlation Coefficient ≥ 0.99, dwell time of 50 ms and SNR ≥ 20 dB (for ZDR with a magnitude greater than 1 dB, bias should be less than 10% of the ZDR magnitude)

• Correlation Coefficient: 0.006 for target with true spectrum width of 2 m/s, Correlation Coefficient ≥ 0.99, dwell time of 50 ms and SNR ≥ 20 dB

• Differential Phase: 1 deg for target with true spectrum width of 2 m/s, Correlation Coefficient of ≥ 0.99, dwell time of 50 ms and SNR ≥ 20 dB

Standard deviation of estimates of radar variables

The radar variable values generated by signal processing of target return signals must be consistent from observation to observation for any given type of spatially homogeneous weather target to ensure reliability and dependability for subjective and objective applications of the data.

Accurate estimations of system bias and low standard deviations of estimates of radar variables are critical components of the accuracy and representativeness of the radar variable estimates.

Performance of WSR-88D:

• Reflectivity: ≤ 1 dB for target with true spectrum width of 4 m/s and SNR ≥ 10 dB

• Velocity: ≤ 1 m/s for target with true spectrum width of 4 m/s and SNR > 8 dB

• Spectrum Width: ≤ 0.5 m/s for target with true spectrum width of 2 m/s and < 0.95 m/s for true spectrum width of 4 m/s and SNR > 10 dB

• Differential Reflectivity: < 0.4 dB for target with true spectrum width of 2 m/s, Correlation Coefficient ≥ 0.99, dwell time of 50 ms and SNR ≥ 20 dB

• Correlation Coefficient: < 0.006 for target with true spectrum width of 2 m/s, correlation coefficient ≥ 0.99, dwell time of 50 ms and SNR ≥ 20 dB

• Differential Phase: < 2.5 deg for target with true spectrum width of 2 m/s, correlation coefficient of ≥ 0.99, dwell time of 50 ms and SNR ≥ 20 dB

Quantization of radar variables

Radar variables must be provided to data processing systems with sufficient quantization to support data accuracy determinations and to provide the capability to reveal the small scale, often critical, variations of values within many weather targets (e.g., convective storms). Radar variable quantization is sometimes used interchangeably with precision of the variable estimates (e.g., the WSR-88D System Specification), even though such usage is not technically correct.

Performance of WSR-88D:

• Reflectivity: 0.5 dB

• Velocity: 0.5 m/s

• Spectrum Width: 0.5 m/s

• Differential Reflectivity: 0.0625 dB

• Correlation Coefficient: 0.00333

• Differential Phase: 0.35 deg