From correspondents in Andhra Pradesh, India, 12:00 PM IST

Astra Microwave Products Ltd, India’s leading provider of microwave wireless communications technologies for use in defense, space, and civilian applications, today announced that it has received an INR 255 million order from the Indian Meteorological Department. The order is for the supply, installation, and commissioning of remote unmanned automatic remote weather stations in 550 locations across India. Scheduled to be installed in 2009, the weather stations will feed live data via satellite to the Met Department’s central servers on a 24X7 basis.

Each automated weather station will consist of:

• Data logging and transmission system

• GPS receiver and transmitter

• Antenna

• Solar panel

• Remote display unit

• Sensors for temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, rainfall, soil moisture and temperature, among others.

Featuring sensors for multiple weather variables, the stations will bring bleeding edge capability to short-term weather forecasting at the local, regional, and national level, said B Malla Reddy, Managing Director, Astra Microwave Products Limited. “Precise weather forecasting is of crucial significance to groups such as farmers, fishermen, transporters, traffic controllers, public and emergency service providers--indeed, to anyone whose profession is dependent on or affected by the weather; we see our automatic weather stations as an enabler for India at large,” said Mr Malla Reddy.

Source: Press Release Distribution via India PRwire