Fully Digital Phased Array Development for Next Generation Weather Radar
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Harger, Matthew; Conway, M. David; Thomas, Henry; Weber, Mark; Bendickson, John; Morris, Alex; Hoffmann, Ted; Van Schaick, Nathan
- Source
- 2021 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf21) Radar Conference (RadarConf21), 2021 IEEE. :1-6 May, 2021
- Subject
- Aerospace
General Topics for Engineers
Signal Processing and Analysis
Phased arrays
Meteorological radar
Microwave technology
Data integrity
Prototypes
Documentation
US Government agencies
phased array
digital
weather radar
RF
systems
- Language
- ISSN
- 2375-5318
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is evaluating the feasibility of polarimetric phased array radar (PPAR) technology as a basis for its future U.S. operational meteorological radar network. A 10-cm wavelength PPAR – the Advanced Technology Demonstrator (ATD) – is a key asset for exploring associated operational benefits and evaluating solutions to key technical challenges. This paper discusses follow-on PPAR technology development to more fully meet NOAA’s next-generation operational radar requirements. A digital-at-the-element array architecture is recommended to support desired scanning capability, and to maintain data quality commensurate with the current operational weather radar. We describe our development of tile-based PPAR prototype technology that exploits novel commercial-off-the-shelf microwave processing technology to meet NOAA’s future requirements. We conclude with an outlook for integration, test, refinement and documentation of a 2-panel prototype of this digital PPAR.