1884results about "Rainfall/precipitation gauges" patented technology

The present invention is directed to a radio-acoustic sounding system for providing wind measurements at altitudes of 100 meters or less. Wind measurements are obtained by transmitting a pulse of audio frequency energy through one or more volumes corresponding to the coverage area of one or more radio frequency transceivers. The frequency of the audio pulse is selected to have a wavelength that is one-half the wavelength of the electromagnetic energy transmitted by the antenna or antennas. By monitoring a return radio frequency signal at selected times following the transmission of the audio pulse, wind data is obtained at selected altitudes. Wind speed and direction can be obtained by observing the Doppler frequency shift of return radio frequency signals, or by observing the amplitude of the return radio frequency signals. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, precipitation measurements may be made by transmitting a radio frequency signal at the same radio frequency as is used in connection with wind measurements, and observing return radio frequency signals.

The invention discloses a system for predicting geologic hazard based on rainfall intensity, moisture content of slope soil and deformation. The system comprises an automatic rainfall gauge, a soil moisture sensor, an omnibearing tilt sensor, an omnibearing vision sensor, an embedded system and a monitoring center computer, wherein the automatic rainfall gauge is used for monitoring rainfall and rainfall intensity of a geologic hazard point; the soil moisture sensor is used for monitoring moisture in soil at the geologic hazard point; the omnibearing tilt sensor is used for detecting earth surface deformation and internal deformation of the geologic hazard point; the omnibearing vision sensor is used for evaluating geologic hazard scale; the embedded system is used for wirelessly transmitting video and monitoring data; and the monitoring center computer is used for predicting and forecasting the geologic hazard and comprises a communication module, a data receiving module, a rainfall and rainfall intensity-based geologic hazard prediction module, a slope displacement-time curve-based geologic hazard prediction module, a soil moisture, rainfall and rainfall intensity-based geologichazard prediction module and a soil moisture content and slope deformation-based geologic hazard prediction module. The system has the advantages of complete monitoring means, accurate prediction andforecast, high intelligence and on-line real time.

The invention discloses an intelligent geologic hazard comprehensive monitoring system and a multi-level forecast analyzing method. The system is a monitoring device which can be assembled and disassembled according to the requirement, and is applicable to outdoor assembly. The system is a shaft after assembly, measures in fixed time and wirelessly transmits information of slope underground depth deformation to a system information analysis control unit form the ground, acquires an image in a monitoring area by continuously scanning in fixed time by a laser scanner, and is provided with a multipoint fixed point ranging laser to carry out accurate range measurement on a selected object. The system and the method take the geologic hazard underground depth deformation and ground surface direct deformation displacement as main monitoring forecast foundation, and divide hazard forecast into four levels, namely a preparing level, a pre-warning level, an early forecast level and a hazard forecast level by combining with assistant parameters and induction factors of physical and chemical field variations, thereby integrally completing the functions of monitoring, analyzing and forecasting on site.

A system for monitoring a power transmission line of a power grid, including a first comprehensive sensor (402, 502) disposed at the intermediate position of a power transmission line between two towers including an altimeter, a first acceleration sensor, a temperature and humidity sensor and a rainfall sensor; a second comprehensive sensor (404, 504) disposed at the cable connector of the power transmission line including a leakage current sensor, a tension sensor and a wind speed and direction sensor; and a second acceleration sensor (406, 506) disposed at the intermediate position of the power transmission line between the cable connector of the power transmission line and the first comprehensive sensor (402, 502). A method for monitoring a power transmission line of a power grid, including a step of monitoring the sag condition, wind yaw angle, motion and position tracking, flutter conditions, breeze vibration level, fatigue life and icing situation of a power transmission line. The method and system for monitoring a power transmission line of a power grid effectively prevent and reduce incidents of the power transmission line of the power grid based on sensor multi-dimensional sensing technology combined with the advantages of wireless sensor network technology.

An image processing system which detects foreign matter on window of a vehicle with high reliability. The system includes an image processor, a first lamp, and a second lamp and when to turn on the first and second lamps is controlled by the image processor. Light from the first lamp passes through the glass. If there are raindrops on the outer surface of the glass, light is reflected by raindrops and light from the second lamp is reflected by a surface of the glass and such reflected light goes through a lens and an optical filter with prescribed optical characteristics to an imaging device.

A device for detecting the wetting and / or soiling of a windscreen surface, in particular in a vehicle, comprises a camera with a sensor having a plurality of light-sensitive pixels arranged as an array and adapted to be illuminated according to an illumination cycle, and having a focussing optic for a camera focus set to almost infinite. The device is further provided with a light source for illuminating a detection portion of the screen surface detectable by the camera. The light source may be switched on and off according to a predeterminable ON / OFF cycle. The ON / OFF cycle is synchronized to the illumination cycle of the camera sensor, and the wetting / soiling of the screen surface may be detected by comparing the image information from the sensor of the camera when the light source is turned on and when the light source is turned off.

An integrated rainfall calculation method using X-band dual-polarimetric radar measurement data includes a precipitation classification step of classifying hydrometeors into four types of snow, rain / snow, rain and non-meteorological target through a fuzzy logic technique using a correlation coefficient (cross correlation coefficient, ρhv), features of a measured differential propagation phase (Ψdp(r)) or differential propagation phase (φdp) and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as input variables (input feature vector); a specific differential phase calculation step of separately calculating a specific differential phase by applying a specific differential phase using a total difference of differential phase and signal-attenuation corrected reflectivity for the rain among the classified hydrometeors and applying a specific differential phase calculated using a filtering method for the other hydrometeors; and a rainfall calculation step of calculating rainfall by using a relation between the specific differential phase and the rainfall and using the separately calculated specific differential phase.

The invention discloses a ground daily rainfall predicting method based on satellite remote sensing and regression Kriging. The method comprises the steps that firstly, data are fast obtained through satellite remote sensing, and a regression relation among ground-based observation values, TRMM, DEMs and geographic positions of rainfall capacities of all levels is established according to the classification of the rainfall to obtain regression estimated values and regression residual errors of all levels; secondly, the spatial agglomeration degrees of the regression residual errors of all levels are analyzed, the trend removing is carried out on the regression residual errors, and the Kriging interpolation of the regression residual errors is carried out to obtain the regression residual error spatial distribution characteristics of all levels per 1 km; thirdly, the regression estimated values of all levels and the regression residual errors of all levels are added to obtain the ground-based predicting values of rainfall of all levels per 1 km; lastly, the ground-based predicting values of the rainfall of all levels are merged to obtain a daily rainfall predicting value per 1 km. According to the ground daily rainfall predicting method, the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of the ground-based rainfall can be accurately predicted, the predicting precision of the ground daily rainfall is improved, the predicted space resolution is improved, and the key problem that the water conservancy department predicts the ground rainfall is solved.

A precipitation gauge for measuring liquid and frozen precipitation is provided according to the present invention that includes a support structure having at least one light sensor, or pair of electrodes, and at least one light source disposed thereon so that the light sensor may receive light that is emitted from the light source. The light sensor or light sensors and the light source or light sources generally extend a substantial height of the support structure. The light sensor or light sensors generate an output signal in response to the amount of light received from the light source. A microprocessor receives the output signal or output signals from the light sensor or light sensors and determines whether precipitation is present between the light sensor or light sensors and the light source or light sources. Based on the output signal or output signals, the microprocessor determines and displays the level of precipitation. The microprocessor may also determine the density of frozen precipitation.

The present invention relates to a computer-implemented method of providing a landslide hazard assessment, including: inputting a region from which to retrieve geographic information from a database or from a user in real-time, using an input device of a computer system; retrieving geographic information from the database, on the region; retrieving satellite-based remote sensing data from the external database in real-time or near real-time from the region, the external database being accessed by the computer system over the internet; creating a susceptibility map which is divided into a plurality of categories that represent relative susceptibility to landslides; showing the plurality of categories on the susceptibility map on a display of the computer system, using a defining characteristic; comparing a current daily rainfall accumulation from the external database to a daily rainfall threshold; and issuing a moderate- or high-hazard level landslide nowcast, depending on a result of the comparison.

A computerized system for mapping an atmospheric phenomenon in a geographic region. Multiple free-space electromagnetic communications links are previously distributed in the geographic region. The system includes an interface to monitoring mechanisms attached respectively to the free-space electromagnetic communications links. The monitoring mechanisms respectively monitor attenuation levels of the free-space electromagnetic communications links. A processor simultaneously processes the attenuation levels, and maps in the geographic region the atmospheric phenomenon. The simultaneous processing preferably applies a non-linear model which relates the attenuation levels the atmospheric phenomenon, and solves a tomographic problem based on the non-linear model and the attenuation levels. The tomographic problem is preferably solved by an interactive algorithm based on consecutive refinement and linear inversion at each iteration. Alternatively, an interpolation is performed based on respective inverse distance from the communications links. Preferably, the interpolation is further based on respective lengths of communications links. A data interface preferably provides to subscribers temporal information related to the atmospheric phenomenon within portions of the geographic region.

A method is provided for monitoring at least one sensor of a vehicle, which has means for wireless communication, wherein measured values of the at least one sensor are compared to measured values of at least one comparison vehicle with the aid of the means for wireless communication.

This invention is to establish a real-time and self-supporting environmental monitoring system using wireless sensor network and solar energy. First, the precipitation volume and groundwater level of monitoring nodes are transported to the gateway by the multi-hop topology of wireless sensor network. Secondly, the gateway transmits the information to a base station via the GPRS or GSM. Finally, the monitoring data are transposed into an established database. The user can inquire about the real-time monitoring information via the internet, and so as to prevent the disaster and to reduce the damage in advance.

A rain sensor is provided for fastening on an inner side of a windscreen of a motor vehicle. The rain sensor includes a holding frame for fastening to the inner side of the windscreen, a sensor element, a housing part for housing the sensor element such that the sensor element is arranged in the housing part, and a holding device for engaging the holding frame, the holding device being fastened to the housing part, wherein the holding device is brought into engagement with the holding frame in a pre-mounted state, and the holding device presses the housing part with the sensor element onto the windscreen in a final mounted state.

A precipitation gauge that collects liquid and frozen precipitation in a reservoir, suspended by force-sensing transducers, permitting the accurate and precise measurement of accumulated precipitation. A proportionally-heated collector assembly prevents the accumulation of frozen rain or snow on the collector inner surface, converting it into water that enters the reservoir, with minimum electrical energy consumption. The force-sensing transducer may be a programmably excited vibrating strip transducer.

The invention provides a multi-source information fusion based rainfall estimation method. The multi-source information fusion based rainfall estimation method includes: combining ground station observation rainfall data in a study area with a multi-source satellite rainfall data body in the study area to form a multi-source data set in the study area; establishing a dynamic Bayesian theory basedBayesian rainfall prediction model; using the maximum entropy method to obtain a nonlinear optimal solution of the Bayesian rainfall prediction model, and then determining the optimal weight and uncertainty information of each satellite data source; and generating an estimation result using the multi-source information fusion rainfall in the study area. The advantages of the invention are that theresult of multi-data source fusion analysis can reduce the uncertainty of the regional rainfall estimation due to the inaccuracy of a single type of rainfall information; and more reliable data inputand richer and more refined modeling data are provided for strengthening regional high-precision disaster warning, avoiding the flood risk or small watershed rainstorm flood estimation.

The invention discloses an urban rainstorm waterlogging assessment and modeling method. The method comprises the steps that an urban earth's surface runoff producing model is established, a time-integration method is adopted to calculate accumulated infiltration and accumulated produced runoff at a moment t, wherein t represents rainfall time; according to the calculated accumulated infiltration and accumulated produced runoff at the moment t, hour-by-hour continuous simulation is conducted on a ponding zone and ponding depth of rainstorm waterlogging by obtaining the rainfall capacity hour by hour and utilizing an equal-volume method, and an urban earth's surface confluence model is established to obtain urban rainstorm waterlogging simulation result at corresponding moment. The time-integration method is adopted to respectively process a water permeable zone and a water non-permeable zone, hour-by-hour continuous simulation can be performed by inputting hour-by-hour rainfall capacities, and real-time forecasting and estimation of the rainstorm waterlogging are achieved through butt joint with rainfall forecasting. According to the method, the whole urban waterlogging and water receding process is considered, and hour-by-hour elaborate simulation of urban waterlogging can be achieved, so that real-time operation influencing the model in forecasting becomes possible.

An intelligent irrigation rain sensor for use in an irrigation system comprises a rain sensor unit and a sensor control unit. The rain sensor unit has a rain catcher reservoir with an open top for receiving rainwater. The rain catcher has an internal volume for holding water and tapers into a funnel with an opening for metering equally sized round water droplets at a steady-state drip rate. At least one droplet detector is positioned directly below the funnel opening that contacts the water droplets from the funnel. The droplet detector includes detection electrodes for sensing a change in an electrical property being monitored by a detection control in the sensor control unit. Each droplet detected may be counted and the droplet count retained in a memory, or excluded from counting based on certain factors, such as the drip rate between droplets from the funnel opening. Upon exceeding a rain threshold amount over measurement time period, the intelligent irrigation rain sensor issues a rain signal to the irrigation controller. The intelligent irrigation rain sensor issues a corresponding dry signal to the irrigation controller after a drying period has elapsed. The present intelligent irrigation rain sensor may issue consecutive rain signals and accumulate drying periods for each, up to a predetermined limit, before issuing a single dry signal to the irrigation controller.

The invention discloses a debris flow early warning method. Aiming at the technical problem that the prior art cannot solve calculation and determination of early warning rainfall threshold value of a debris flow early warning system in a basic data information lacking region, the invention provides the debris flow early warning method applied in the basic data information lacking region. The method comprises the following steps of: arranging rainfall monitoring sites at reasonable places of a debris flow valley; taking the sum of 1hr rainfall intensity value of rainfall data of the rainfall monitoring sites and early affected rainfall value as an early warning rainfall threshold value; calculating and determining the early warning rainfall threshold value of each site based on a debris flow starting mechanism by using the data of rainfall, hydrographic characteristic, terrain in the valley, loose solid substances and the like of a debris flow early warning region, presetting each threshold value in the early warning system, and judging whether to start the early warning system for early warning through the real-time comparison result of the real-time rainfall data and the threshold values. In the method, the principle is reliable, the calculation process is scientific and simple, implementing equipment is simple and installation is convenient, and the method can be universally applied to the requirements of debris flow early warning of various debris flow regions.

A computerized method of processing data for use in weather modeling is provided. The method includes receiving, from a first data source, by a first server, microwave link data including signal attenuation information. The method also includes pre-processing, in real time, by the first server, the microwave link data, thereby producing pre-processed microwave link data, The method also includes storing the pre-processed microwave link data in a first data store. The method also includes receiving, from the first data store, by a second server, the pre-processed microwave link data. The method also includes processing, on a scheduled routine, by the second server, the pre-processed microwave link data using a data transform, thereby producing first weather data.

The invention relates to a precipitation data processing method which uses temporal interpolation to treat detected accumulated precipitation, based on the could picture detected per hour by geostationary meteorological satellite and cloud classification information to attain high resolution. The method comprises the steps of: attaining accumulation precipitation spatial distribution data; classifying could pictures; finding the precipitation rate of each could type; determining the accumulation precipitation temporal interpolation weight factor of each could type; processing temporal weight interpolation of each hour for the accumulation precipitation evaluation data; and outputting the accumulated precipitation evaluation data of each hour. The invention can improve the time resolution of precipitation evaluation data treatment.

An environment detection device and an environment detection method suitable for a street lamp are provided. The environment detection method comprises the following steps. Latitude and longitude of the position of the street lamp is provided. A weather information at the position of the street lamp is detected. A first network packet is generated according to the weather information and the latitude and longitude. The first network packet is transmitted to a server.

A system and method are disclosed for forecasting probability of precipitation values and most probable precipitation amount values for, preferably, three hour time period increments starting from the present hour through approximately hour 96 (i.e., four days) or beyond. The values are recalculated at the beginning of each hour, based upon existing forecasting information and meteorological data. The values are communicated to end users through a communications channel such as the Internet.

The present invention relates to a regional automatic rainfall station hourly rainfall data quality control system and method. The control system comprises a radar raw data pre-processing unit, an input unit, a quality flow main unit, an output unit, a destination file drawing unit and a destination file output parameter unit, wherein the radar raw data pre-processing unit is connected with the input unit; the input unit is connected with the quality flow main unit; the quality flow main unit comprises a rainfall estimation module, a matching module and a quality control module; and one end of the output unit is connected with the matching module while the other end is individually connected with the destination file drawing unit and the destination file output parameter unit. The control system provided by the present invention is simple and reasonable in structure design and stable and reliable in operation. According to the control method, a face state of the rainfall can be accurately captured by introducing radar files, thus to effectively help to judge uncertain identification of extreme rainfalls in a flood season.

A vehicle is disclosed that uses data from different types of on-board sensors to determine whether meteorological precipitation is failing near the vehicle. The vehicle may include an on-board camera capturing image data and an on-board accelerometer capturing accelerometer data. The image data may characterize an area in front of or behind the vehicle. The accelerometer data may characterize vibrations of a windshield of the vehicle. An artificial neural network may run on computer hardware carried on-board the vehicle. The artificial neural network may be trained to classify meteorological precipitation in an environment of the vehicle using the image data and the accelerometer data as inputs. The classifications of the artificial neural network may be used to control one or more functions of the vehicle such as windshield-wiper speed, traction-control settings, or the like.

The invention discloses a regional automatic weather station hourly rainfall data quality control method. The method comprises the steps that a discriminant model is established according to historical data; raindrop spectrometer data, weather radar data and automatic weather station rainfall data are collated in real time; the data of a number of raindrop spectrometers are used to evaluate and revise a radar echo intensity result; the relationship between the radar echo intensity and the rain intensity is fitted according to different precipitation types; the fitted relationship is substituted into a radar quantitative estimation precipitation module to realize radar quantitative rainfall estimation to acquire hourly rainfall; the set of weather radar estimated hourly rainfall and regional automatic weather station hourly rainfall is established; and comparing with the pre-established discriminant model is carried out to judge whether the regional automatic weather station hourly rainfall data are abnormal. The automatic weather station rainfall data are accurate and reliable. The observation data quality is improved. The method lays a good foundation for weather monitoring, early warning, forecasting and other businesses.

The invention provides a rainfall measurement method based on video images. For rainfall videos acquired by a video camera, the logarithmic image processing (LIP) method is adopted to replace the brightness value with gray tone and build gray tone constraint conditions to extract candidate raindrops; the principal component analysis (PCA) method is utilized to build a probability density distribution function of the inclination directions of the candidate raindrops, the Mean-shift method is adopted to derive and solve the peak value of the distribution function, and the inclination directions of the candidate raindrops are constrained to remove interference; defocusing raindrops are removed through constrain on the included angle between color vectors of both the scene background and the raindrop foreground; the size of each focusing raindrop is demarcated and calculated by parameters of a camera, a raindrop spectrum is built and the rainfall is derived by utilizing a Gamma raindrop spectrum distribution model in a fitting manner. According to the invention, a traditional rainfall measurement method is broken through, and the video-based measurement method is innovatively provided; rainfall data acquired by adopting the video-based measurement method has very high time resolution and spatial resolution; and economization and rapidness are realized.

An embodiment of the invention provides an X-band dual-polarization weather radar quantitative precipitation measurement method and an X-band dual-polarization weather radar quantitative precipitationmeasurement system. The X-band dual-polarization weather radar quantitative precipitation measurement method comprises the steps of: utilizing an X-band dual-polarization radar to obtain radar data in a detection range, and using a laser raindrop spectrograph to obtain an actually measured raindrop spectrum of a detection point; acquiring a radar reflectivity factor and an attenuation rate; acquiring an actually measured rainfall rate and a radar reflectivity factor true value of the detection point based on the actually measured raindrop spectrum, acquiring an attenuation rate true value ofthe detection point through T matrix scattering simulation, acquiring a rainfall function in the detection range through fitting the actually measured rainfall rate and the attenuation rate true value, and further acquiring a rainfall rate; inverting the rainfall rate by using the attenuation rate if the radar reflectivity factor is greater than a first set threshold value; and acquiring an attenuation rate function in the detection range through fitting the radar reflectivity factor true value and the attenuation rate true value is the radar reflectivity factor is not greater than the first set threshold value, and then acquiring a rainfall rate in the detection range based on the attenuation rate function. The X-band dual-polarization weather radar quantitative precipitation measurementmethod and the X-band dual-polarization weather radar quantitative precipitation measurement system can acquire more precise predicted rainfall rates.

A method for forecasting flood, the method including: calibrating the hydrological model by using an objective function that is a sum of squared difference between the observed streamflow and the corresponding forecasted streamflow at each lead time to obtain the optimized hydrological model; using the optimized hydrological model to forecast floods; and evaluating forecasting performance of the optimized hydrological model. The method improves the forecasting accuracy and provides forecasting results at various lead times.