BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- A number of advanced Chinese radar systems have been set up at Beijing Daxing International Airport, offering faster and more accurate weather forecasts.
One is a millimeter-wave cloud radar, developed by a research institute affiliated with the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp.
According to the institute, it is capable of monitoring clouds, fog, snow and drizzle within 60 km of the airport and obtaining weather data. Working together with other radar systems, the new radar will improve airport weather forecasts with higher accuracy and provide better real-time monitoring and early warning of low-visibility conditions.
The installation of two other boundary wind profiler radar systems and a low-tropospheric wind profiler radar system developed by the institute will be completed soon.
In addition, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation developed a new weather radar for the new airport with the latest radar technology. It has a faster scanning speed, better reliability and stronger detection ability than ordinary radar systems.
The radar only takes one minute to complete a scan while previous radars took around six. The new system can function for 3,000 hours, five times that of ordinary radar systems.
According to its developers, the radar can detect dangerous weather, such as thunderstorms and heavy wind faster and more accurately.
Located 46 km south of downtown Beijing, the new airport will be put into operation in September and take pressure off the overcrowded Beijing Capital International Airport in the northeastern suburbs.
It completed its first test flight of passenger planes Monday, showing that the new airport has turned its focus from infrastructure construction to operation preparations.
The airport is expected to handle 45 million passengers annually by 2021 and 72 million by 2025.
