Baron Weather, a global innovator in advanced weather technology for over 35 years, today announced Baron Fortress, its new line of solid-state weather radar. Available in both C-Band and S-Band configurations, Fortress is engineered to deliver the range, sensitivity, and resolution of high-power weather radar in a solid-state system built for continuous, uninterrupted operation.
Every Fortress system comes completely from Baron. That includes all the radar hardware and Baron Prism, the software that processes the radar data. One company designs, installs, and supports the radar. Fortress also runs Baron ClearScan, Baron's AI-powered data-quality algorithm, which identifies and removes non-meteorological clutter, including ground returns, buildings, and cellular interference, for cleaner data from day one.
At the heart of Fortress is a different kind of transmitter, built on gallium-nitride (GaN) technology. This GaN technology gives Fortress a way to match the performance of much larger, higher-power radar systems, using components that are smaller, simpler, and easier to keep running for the long haul. Fortress uses long-pulse transmission with dynamic matched filtering to recover the detection sensitivity of a far higher-power system, even though a solid-state transmitter produces lower peak power than a klystron or magnetron, matching the superior data quality of the more traditional tube-based radar systems.
"With Fortress, we're not asking agencies to choose between performance and reliability. Solid-state gives them both, in a system built to keep running even if a single component needs service," said Jon Tarleton, VP of Integrated Weather Systems at Baron Weather. "It's another way we back agencies with the full Baron ecosystem, implementing whichever transmitter technology best fits their environment."
Reliability by Design
Fortress is built to keep operating exactly when agencies need it most, through a severe weather event, not just around it. That resilience comes from:
- Field-replaceable GaN amplifier modules, so if one module ever needs service, the radar keeps running instead of going offline
- Extensive built-in system monitoring that surfaces issues before they become failures
- No high-voltage components or consumable tubes to service, simplifying maintenance over the life of the system
- Baron's Progressive Pulse Compression Plus (PPC+) implementation, developed collaboratively with University of Oklahoma, which eliminates the near-range blind spot common to solid-state systems
With Fortress, Baron now offers dependability in three ways. Whether a customer chooses klystron, magnetron, or solid-state, they get the same Baron ecosystem behind it, including Baron Prism processing, Baron ClearScan enhancing data quality, and Baron's radar engineering and site support. The right transmitter technology depends on the environment, budget, and mission; Baron builds and supports all three systems that deliver unmatched data quality.
Backed by the same team that completed the National Weather Service's Dual-Polarization upgrade of the U.S. NEXRAD radar network, Fortress is built on decades of radar design and engineering experience across every major climate and terrain type worldwide.
Fortress C-Band is available today, with the Fortress S-Band available in 2027.
Planning your next radar investment? Our latest Radar Decision Guide walks through the key choices, from frequency band and transmitter type to dual-polarization and site selection. Download the guide here to get started.
