The use of commercial microwave links (CMLs) as opportunistic near-ground rain sensors has been widely studied since first suggested by us in 2006 . In particular, reliable retrieval of 2-D near-ground rain fields based on CML measurements has been demonstrated in several countries around the world. It is done either by classic spatial interpolation methods, in which a CML is considered as a single virtual rain gauge (VRG), located in the center of the link, or by methods where the fact that a CML measures the path integration of the rain along the link (as tomography) is exploited. In this talk I will present a study which compares the two approaches. First we compared systematically the empirical performance of IDW-based algorithm where each CML is represented by a single VRG, with the case where it is represented by several VRGs, using simulated as well as real data. Then, a theoretical, algorithm-free, comparative performance analysis results are presented. Both theoretical and empirical results show that in general, the performance advantage of the more sophisticated algorithm depends on the nature of the rain field, where a spotty rain is better retrieved by algorithms which exploit the CML’s length.

This seminar is organized by the MOPRAM project team.

HAGIT MESSER received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University (TAU), ISRAEL, and after a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University, she joined the faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University in 1986, where she is The Kranzberg Chair Professor in Signal Processing at the school of Electrical Engineering. On 2000-3 she has been on leave from TAU, serving as the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Science. After returning to TAU she was the head of the Porter school of environmental studies (2004-6), and the Vice President for Research and Development (2006-8). Then, she has been the President of the Open University (2008-13), and from Oct. 2013 till January 2016 she has served as the Vice Chair of the Council of Higher Education, Israel. On 2016 she has also become a co-founder of ClimaCell.
Prof. Messer, Life Fellow of the IEEE, is an expert in statistical signal processing with applications to source localization, communication and environmental monitoring. She has published numerous journal and conference papers, and has supervised tens of graduate students.