Water vapor observing system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10690603-B2
Application number	US-201615748052-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 8, 2016
Priority date	Jul 28, 2015
Publication date	Jun 23, 2020
Grant date	Jun 23, 2020

Abstract

A water vapor observing system which is capable of observing water vapor regardless of a situation of an external system may be provided. The water vapor observing system may be configured to observe water vapor contained within atmospheric air, and include a transmission unit configured to transmit transmission waves, one of a reception unit configured to receive reflection waves caused by the transmission waves reflected on and returned from a stationary object as reception waves, and a reception unit disposed at a different position from the transmission unit and configured to receive the transmission waves as reception waves, and a relative water vapor amount calculating module configured to calculate a relative water vapor amount that is a relative value of water vapor with respect to a reference water vapor amount being a comparison target, based on the reception wave received by the one of the reception units.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A water vapor observing system for observing water vapor contained within atmospheric air, comprising:
a transmitter circuitry positioned on a ground and configured to transmit at least a transmission wave;
a first receiver circuitry positioned at a different position from the transmitter on the ground and configured to receive the transmission wave as a first wave;
a second receiver circuitry positioned at a different position from the transmitter and the first receiver circuitry on the ground and configured to receive a second wave from the transmitter circuitry; and
processing circuitry configured to calculate a first relative amount of water vapor in a first passing area of the first wave and a second relative amount of water vapor in a second passing area of the second wave based on a first attenuation amount obtained by subtracting an echo level of the first wave from a level of the transmission wave from the transmitter circuitry and a second attenuation amount obtained by subtracting an echo level of the second wave from the level of the transmission wave.

2. The water vapor observing system of claim 1 , wherein the second receiver circuitry comprises a plurality of second receiver circuitries positioned at different positions from each other.

3. The water vapor observing system of claim 2 , wherein the transmitter circuitry, the first receiver circuitry, and the plurality of the second receiver circuitries are arranged so that straight lines connecting them with each other form a lattice shape when seen from above.

4. The water vapor observing system of claim 1 , wherein the first receiver circuitry and the transmitter circuitry are configured as a transceiver.

5. The water vapor observing system of claim 1 , wherein the second receiver circuitry is a transponder that transmits a transmission wave in response to receiving the second wave.

6. The water vapor observing system of claim 1 , wherein one of the transmitter circuitry and the receiver circuitry is positioned higher than the other.

7. The water vapor observing system of claim 1 , further comprising a display configured to display an index of the relative amount of water vapor.

8. The water vapor observing system of claim 7 , wherein the index is a distribution of the relative amount of water vapor.

Assignees

• Furuno Electric Co

Inventors

• Minowa Masahiro
• Yano Koji

Classifications

• G01W1/14 Primary

  Rainfall or precipitation gauges (measuring volume in general G01F) · CPC title

• Y02A90/10

  Information and communication technologies [ICT] supporting adaptation to climate change, e.g. for weather forecasting or climate simulation · CPC title

• G01S13/003

  Bistatic radar systems; Multistatic radar systems · CPC title

• G01S13/951

  ground based · CPC title

• G01N22/04 Primary

  Investigating moisture content · CPC title