UNPRECEDENTED DATA FOR SPACE WEATHER RESEARCH FROM EISCAT 3D Radar stations

EISCAT 3D will be the world’s leading facility of its kind, offering a critically important window to the upper atmosphere and the near-Earth space in the European Arctic.The sophisticated phased-array radars bring together new capabilities never before combined in a single instrument. As the name suggests, a key capability is to measure a 3-D volume of the upper atmosphere, in unprecedented detail. The obtained information is necessary to understand how energetic particles and electrical currents from space affect both the upper and the lower atmosphere (e.g. space weather and auroral phenomena) as well as man-made technologies, such as satellites and power grids on the ground.

DA-Group is the provider of receiver and transmitter units, namely First Stage Receiver Unit and Sub-Array Transmitter System, for the EISCAT 3D radar antenna sites in Finland (Karesuvanto), Sweden (Bergfors) and Norway (Skibotn). 

The First Stage Receiver Unit (FSRU) delivery covers the low noise amplifier, analogue-to-digital converter and the first stage beam former system receiver chain for each of the E3D antennas at the three sites. Since each E3D antenna receive in two polarizations, the total number of receive channels is 19.838 for a fully deployed site.The EISCAT 3D system is built as sub-arrays with 91 antennas in each block. The system integrates in the resulting 182 receive channels (for each 91-antenna sub-array) in a common FSRU unit.

The Sub-Array Transmitter System includes a RF transmitter with 5 MW power.

Established in 1975,EISCAT  is a non-profit scientific organizationprimarily comprising of research councils and national institutes from Finland, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan, and China, with additional members from several other countries.The EISCAT 3D programme is the culmination of a 10-year design and preparation phase, supported by the European Union. The EISCAT 3D project started in September 2017 with site preparations to begin in mid 2018. The radar is expected to be operational in 2021.

DA-Group has the expertise and capability to deliver space situational awareness. Situational awareness can be generated actively by radar or passively by monitoring the electromagnetic spectrum. We have the capability to provide situational awareness using both methods. The EISCAT 3D radar stations are an example of radar-generated spatial imagery.