Scientists Go Indoors to Test Next-Gen Hurricane Hunter

• weather
• hurricanes
• NOAA
• NASA
• tech watch
• meteorology

Quality testing a new, ultrasensitive weather radar requires a room that is guarded from any conflicting emissions. When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Imaging Radiometer, HIRAD, needs some electromagnetic tranquility to test its ability to scan the ocean from an airplane or satellite, researchers place it in an anechoic chamber at a NASA research center in Huntsville, Ala. Because the sensor calculates wind speed using microwave reflections off the ocean’s frothy waves, the instrument’s accuracy must be tested in an electromagnetically silent room. The eye-dazzling patterns of radio frequency–damping material inside the chamber minimize interference. This ensures that the HIRAD antenna only picks up emissions from a source on the other side of the chamber, providing data on the antenna’s sensitivity.

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