ISRO established GIRI Radar System at Tirupati

In Science and Technology
March 25, 2016

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 21 March 2016 established the Gadanki Ionospheric Radar Interferometer (GIRI) near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.

It was set up at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) which is an autonomous research institute of the Department of Space.

Features of GIRI System

It is a 30 MHz radar system that will be engaged in meteor and space weather research in a comprehensive way.
It consists of a rectangular antenna array of 160 two-element Yagi-antenna, arranged in a 20×8 matrix, 20 transmitter units, 6 digital receivers including data processing systems, a radar controller, and a host computer.
Its primary objective is to carry out unattended observations towards studying the forcing from the sun like variation in solar flux, solar flare and magnetic storm on the ionospheric irregularities.
It also seeks to study unattended observations from the underneath atmosphere (e.g., waves generated by weather phenomena) on the ionospheric irregularities.
It will provide important information on the angular location of plasma irregularities during the onset phase and its relationship to background ionospheric state parameters and sunset terminator.
Investigations made using this facility are expected to improve the skill in Equatorial Plasma Bubble (EPB) forecasting which is detrimental for satellite based navigation/communication applications.

National Atmospheric Research Laboratory

It is an autonomous society supported by Department of Space and is located at Gadanki near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
It is one of the specialized atmospheric research in the country to conduct basic atmospheric research, indigenous technology development for atmospheric probing and weather and climate modeling.
It is regularly operates state-of-the-art MST radar, Rayleigh / Mie Lidar, Boundary Layer Lidar, Sodium Lidar, Lower Atmospheric Wind Profiler, Sodar and Dual frequency GPS receiver
.Its facilities are available for national and international scientists to conduct atmospheric research.
The proposed up-gradation of the upcoming active array MST radar into Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) will provide a unique opportunity for scientists from both home and abroad to conduct frontline atmospheric and ionospheric research.
With the ISR upgrade, NARL will become the first comprehensive low latitude observatory in the world.