University of Oklahoma to purchase radar -- first of its kind in United States

The above radar looks much like the new radar system that will be constructed in the southeast area of the OU Research Campus. Click here for more information.

NORMAN, Okla. – A new weather radar – the first of its kind in the United States – is being constructed and located at the University of Oklahoma to enhance education, training, research and development and encourage future innovations.

“The new radar will contribute tremendous potential to the meteorological community for development of weather-related information services that will benefit from co-location with the core weather radar programs on OU’s Research Campus,” said Lee Williams, OU vice president for research. “Together they will create an environment with endless potential for the university, federal, state and private-sector entities,” he said.

An agreement between OU and Enterprise Electronics Corp. will initiate construction of the new, C-band, high-resolution, dual polarization radar, which is expected to be operational by late 2008.

This radar will further OU’s vision for its weather radar enterprise, which is to furtherthe development of OU radar meteorology so that radar-derived information can benefit decisions about the atmospheric and hydrologic environment worldwide, Williams said.

The new radar will serve as a research and development testbed for the Atmospheric Radar Research Center, an interdisciplinary university center engaged in collaborative research to define the next generation of weather radar sensors. The center offers an exceptional radar education for OU students based on a foundation of combining meteorology and engineering expertise and training from OU’s colleges of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, and Engineering. With the acquisition of the new radar, students and researchers will be able to perform a variety of activities, such as testing new and enhanced algorithms and developing unique hardware designs.