Wind prediction systems and methods
A wind prediction system is provided that can be implemented in an air-traffic decision tool or a wind turbine system. An air-traffic decision tool may incorporate a wind prediction system to generate prevailing wind direction predictions and determine a time at which to re-configure runway directions. A wind turbine system may incorporate a wind prediction system to predict power output of a wind turbine.
1. A system, comprising:
at least one wind sensor configured to sample wind vectors for a plurality of parcels of air within a volume at a measurement time; and
at least one processor configured to:
propagate the sampled wind vectors for each of the plurality of parcels of air from the measurement time to a prediction time;
identify a subset of the propagated wind vectors that are within a region of interest associated with an airport runway at the prediction time;
combine the subset of propagated wind vectors to determine a predicted prevailing wind vector in the region of interest at the prediction time;
identify a new runway configuration based on the predicted prevailing wind vector;
obtain aircraft data associated with at least one aircraft approaching the airport runway; and
generate a runway reconfiguration command for reconfiguration of the airport runway from a current runway configuration to the new runway configuration at a reconfiguration time that is based on the obtained aircraft data.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one wind sensor comprises a lidar sensor.
3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the at least one wind sensor further comprises a radar sensor.
4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the at least one wind sensor further comprises an anemometer and a vane sensor.
5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising an air traffic management system, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to provide the generated runway reconfiguration command to the air traffic management system.
6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the air traffic management system is configured to:
generate at least one updated landing pattern for the at least one approaching aircraft based on the runway reconfiguration command and a position of the at least one approaching aircraft; and
provide the at least one updated landing pattern to the at least one approaching aircraft.
7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the at least one approaching aircraft includes a first set of approaching aircraft scheduled to arrive before the reconfiguration time and a second set of approaching aircraft scheduled to arrive after the reconfiguration time, and wherein the air traffic management system is configured to generate an updated landing pattern for each of the second set of approaching aircraft.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to propagate the sampled wind vectors for each of the plurality of parcels of air from the measurement time to the prediction time using an advection model.
9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to propagate the sampled wind vectors for each of the plurality of parcels of air from the measurement time to the prediction time while maintaining incompressibility of the air.
10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the region of interest is a one cubic kilometer region and wherein the volume is substantially larger than the region of interest.
11. A method, comprising:
obtaining wind vector samples for a plurality of parcels of air at a measurement time;
propagating the sampled wind vectors for each of the plurality of parcels of air from the measurement time to a prediction time;
identifying a subset of the propagated wind vectors that are within a region of interest associated with an airport runway at the prediction time;
combining the subset of propagated wind vectors to determine a predicted prevailing wind vector in the region of interest at the prediction time;
identifying a new runway configuration based on the predicted prevailing wind vector;
obtaining aircraft data associated with at least one aircraft approaching the airport runway; and
generating a runway reconfiguration command for reconfiguration of the airport runway from a current runway configuration to the new runway configuration at a reconfiguration time that is based on the obtained aircraft data.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein obtaining the wind vector samples comprises obtaining the wind vector samples with a lidar sensor.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein each wind vector comprises a wind speed and a wind direction for a corresponding parcel, and wherein propagating the sampled wind vectors comprises tracking a position of each parcel as the parcel moves at the wind speed along the wind direction of the wind vector corresponding to that parcel.
14. The method of claim 11 , wherein obtaining the wind vector samples comprises obtaining the wind vector samples with a 100 meter resolution within a disk shaped volume of air approximately 15 km in radius and extending from ground to about 5 km altitude.
15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the prediction time is less than sixty minutes after the measurement time.
16. A system, comprising:
a lidar sensor configured to sample wind vectors for a plurality of parcels of air within a volume; and
computing equipment configured to:
receive the sampled wind vectors from the lidar sensor;
propagate the sampled wind vectors forward in time;
identify a subset of the propagated wind vectors that intercept a region of interest;
identify an arrival time at the region of interest for each of the subset of propagated wind vectors;
bin the subset of the propagated wind vectors based on the identified arrival times; and
identify a prevailing wind vector for the region of interest for each bin of the binned subset of the propagated wind vectors, based on the propagated wind vectors in that bin.
17. The system of claim 16 , wherein each bin corresponds to a predicted time that is after a measurement time at which the wind vectors are sampled by the lidar sensor.
18. The system of claim 16 , wherein the computing equipment is further configured to identify a runway configuration and a reconfiguration time based on the identified prevailing wind vectors.
19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the region of interest is a volume of air associated with an airport or a wind turbine.
20. The system of claim 16 , wherein the computing equipment is further configured to apply a persistence model to the binning of the subset of the propagated wind vectors based on the identified arrival times.