The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) is an innovative technology development designed to provide the operational and research communities with hurricane intensity information that cannot be observed by other sensors. HIRAD will produce imagery of ocean surface wind speed and rain rate during strong wind and heavy rain hurricane conditions that hamper the observational capabilities of existing instruments. HIRAD ocean surface wind observations will significantly contribute to the low altitude wind information needed for the NOAA observational requirement for three-dimensional tropical cyclone wind profiles, identified by the NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project as a high priority need. 

HIRAD is a passive microwave remote instrument which incorporates the observing frequency range of the NOAA Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (which is the only active or passive remote sensing technique that has successfully measured surface wind speeds and rain rates in tropical cyclones) and a unique, technologically advanced array antenna and other technologies successfully demonstrated by the NASA Instrument Incubator Program. HIRAD will be a compact, lightweight, low-power instrument with no moving parts that will produce wide-swath imagery from aircraft or spacecraft platforms. 

The HIRAD development team includes scientific and engineering personnel from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Hurricane Research Division (HRD), the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the University of Central Florida, and the University of Michigan. The Von Braun Center for Science & Innovation collaboration will capitalize on an initial NASA MSFC technology investment to finish the development of two critical subsystems and to test-fly the integrated aircraft instrument in partnership with NASA MSFC. This partnership will expedite the overall development of the HIRAD ocean wind instrument as a prototype for a NOAA Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) component of the Global Earth Observing Systems of Systems (GOESS) for research and operational tropical cyclone applications.