The OWI-430 DSP-WIVIS™ is the most advanced present weather and visibility sensor ever made. The fully automated instrument provides accurate visibility, present weather and precipitation measurement in a single sensor. This 3rd generation intelligent sensor uses all digital signal processing (DSP) for no-drift high-accuracy results. OSi's patented environmentally adaptive algorithms use artificial-intelligence technology derived from over 200 million field hours of real-world data from our sensors installed around the world. The result is the most advanced weather sensor in the world.

The DSP-WIVIS™ measures visibility and detects and quantifies rain, snow, drizzle, freezing and mixed precipitation conditions. The -DSH model identifies whether visibility impairments are caused by haze/fog vs. dust/smoke. The sensor is designed for year-round continuous operation in all climates from Antarctica to tropical rain forests. OSI's advanced weather sensors provide critical weather information to airport, highway, military, research and meteorological weather information systems all over the world with over 3000 systems fielded. Sensing the environment is not a sideline business for us - it is our primary focus. When you need superior present weather information and high reliability, nothing else can match OSi's DSP-WIVIS™.

Thanks to the new DSP electronics, the typical need for field calibration is completely eliminated. The single enclosure makes integration and installation simple. Adding the optional HIP-100 acoustic sensor provides for enhanced hail and ice pellet discrimination. The DSP-WIVIS™ is widely used by airports and regional DOT's across the US and throughout the world. No other weather instrument can provide this powerful combination of high performance, low cost and proven reliability! No other company can provide the proven level of support and customer satisfaction that OSi does!

Optical Scientifics OWI-430 utilizes signals from a forward optical scatter lens, an in-beam (optical scintillation) lens, ambient light, temperature, and humidity to accurately determine meteorological optical range (visibility), precipitation type (rain, snow, hail, drizzle, etc.) and precipitation amount. OWI-430 also reports atmospheric extinction coefficient and ambient light levels required by RVR algorithm

• Transmitter (TX) contains an infrared Light Emitting Diode (LED)
• Receiver (RX) contains two (2) independent optical receiver assemblies, each consisting of a photo diode, lens with dual heaters, and pre-amplifier electronics.
• One of the receivers detects present weather (in-beam) and the other detects visibility (forward scatter).
• Measurement of instantaneous rain rate; Instant notification of precipitation. No lag period Discriminates between rain, snow, drizzle, freezing drizzle, freezing rain, etc.
• Reports over 60 NWS and WMO codes
• Detect rainfall extremely high rain rates > 1000 mm/hr or as light as 0.1 mm/hr; no evaporation errors
• Widely used by NOAA / NWS, military, airports, state DOTs, etc.
• Reduced maintenance. No moving parts; operates 24/7 under harsh field conditions.
• Dust / dirt on lenses does not affect measurement; ultra-low maintenance
• Intelligent sensor; automatic correction and continuous internal monitoring; operates unattended. Algorithms continually refined from over 800 million hours of proven field operation in applications on every continent. Technology field proven for over 30 years (long track record)
• All digital / DSP based design with no temperature sensitive analog components.

HIPS (hail & Ice Pellet sensor

With the addition of the acoustic hail and ice pellet sensor (HIPS) the OWI-430 provides superior snow, ice pellet, hail and freezing rain discrimination, far surpassing all other visibility/present weather sensors

OWI-430 series sensors work on moving platforms

• Eco-friendly – No antifreeze or oil required.
• works with solar power and satellite or GSM communications allowing for easy installation in very remote areas.
• Other sensors can be added without requiring a data logger.
• Extra I/O capability allows the OWI sensors to be used as stand-alone Weather Nodes, which will send out a single string of data to the cloud or an existing software system.

Applications for accurate measurements of Precipitation, Present Weather and Visibility

• Airports
• Road Weather
• Waste Water - Storm Water monitoring
• Irrigation
• ambient air stations (wet deposits vs dry deposits)
• avalanche studies (history of precipitation types)
• railways (icing)
• solar and wind farms (precipitation types)