Investigation of vertical profile of rain microstructure at Ahmedabad in Indian tropical region

The microstructure of rain has been studied with observations using a vertical looking Micro Rain Radar (MRR) at Ahmedabad (23.06°N, 72.62°E), a tropical location in the Indian region. The rain height, derived from the bright band signature of melting layer of radar reflectivity profile, is found to be variable between the heights 4600 m and 5200 m. The change in the nature of rain, classified on the basis of radar reflectivity, is also observed through the MRR. It has been found that there are three types of rain, namely, convective, mixed and stratiform rain, prevailing with different vertical rain microstructures, such as, Drop Size Distribution (DSD), mean drop size, rain rate, liquid water content and average fall speed of the drops at different heights. It is observed that the vertical DSD profile is more inhomogeneous for mixed and stratiform type rain than for convective type rain. It is also found that the large number of drops of size <0.5 mm is present in convective rain whereas in stratiform rain, drops concentration is appreciable up to 1 mm. A comparison of measurements taken by ground based Disdrometer and that from the 200 m level obtained from MRR shows good agreement for rain rate and DSD at smaller rain rate values. The results may be useful for understanding rain structures over this region.     

Cloud attenuation statistics from radiometric measurements over a tropical location Kolkata,India

The objective of this study is to investigate cloud attenuation at 30 GHz frequency using ground-based microwave radiometric observations at a tropical location, Kolkata. At higher frequencies and lower elevation angles, cloud attenuation is of major concern at a tropical location. The location experiences high value of liquid water path (LWP), which is responsible for cloud attenuation, during the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) and pre-monsoon season. Significant amount of cloud attenuation has been observed during monsoon season at 30 GHz. Two years observations of exceedance probability of cloud attenuation and worst month statistics are presented. The variation of cloud attenuation with frequencies for different elevation angles has also been investigated. The seasonal and diurnal patterns of cloud attenuation are examined. Cloud attenuation, inferred from radiometric measurements before rain commencement, has been compared to rain attenuation at Ku-band. Exceedance probabilities of cloud and rain attenuation have been compared.     

START: System Testability Analysis and Research Tool

START, a software package for automatic test sequencing and testability analysis of complex, hierarchically described modular systems, is described, and its use in modeling systems is examined. START uses algorithms based on information theory, heuristic search, and graph theory to solve various faces of the test sequencing and testability analysis problems. A system is modeled in the failure space as a hierarchical directed graph with nodes denoting modules and testpoints and with AND nodes denoting redundancy. Interconnections among the nodes denote their immediate functional dependencies. START supports hierarchical testing in accordance with the maintenance strategy; a failure source may be isolated to a component or a module at any level. Other practical features include options to integrate diagnosis with repair (after partial diagnosis) in order to optimize test time, test cost, or test and repair cost. An interactive menu-mouse graphical interface serves as a high-level front end to these algorithms and enables the user to graphically enter and modify hierarchical functional models of systems. START presents the gist of the outputs of the testability analysis algorithms as a concise testability report consisting of important figures of merit