Design and operation of a 50 m tall meteorological tower and data-acquisition system for realtime applications

• Published in: Current science (Bangalore) Vol. 93; no. 6; pp. 721 - 728
• Main Authors: Somayaji, K M, Venkatesan, R, Gomathinayagam, S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 25.03.2008
• ISSN: 0011-3891

This paper describes the implementation of meteorological measurement facility by installing 50 m tall towers at Kalpakkam for atmospheric dispersion studies. Though nothing novel could apparently be attributed to the idea of writing an article on the tower, the cost-effective structural design, portability-recoverability, in-house design of the signal conditioners, remote data acquisition system (RDAS) with a more generic input database covering various sensor models, user-friendly software and on-line data communication links through ethernet, e-mail, RF transceivers, etc. - all with commercially available low-cost systems - are salient novel features of the tower considered worth reporting. Traditionally occurring practical problems of maintenance, access to sensors at various levels, heavy foundation requirements for a stand-alone tower, etc. have been addressed during the design of the tower structure. On the application side, real-time tower data are obtained as input to an operational meso-scale dispersion model for nuclear emergency response management.