Research

Speaker: Dr. Jothiram Vivekanandan - NCAR/EOL

Airborne radar is a powerful tool to observe weather systems, in particular, storms over complex terrain, the ocean, polar regions, and forest regions not easily observable by ground-based radars. A Doppler radar on an airborne platform can be used for estimating dual-Doppler winds with the help of rapid scanning as the aircraft flies past a storm. Scanning Doppler radar with dual-polarization capability on an airborne platform is capable of measuring dual-Doppler winds and retrieving particle types (ice or water) and shapes and liquid–ice water contents. At present, only an airborne polarimetric Doppler phased array radar (APAR) system has the potential to estimate high temporal- and spatial-resolution measurements of 3-D winds and microphysics concurrently. A weather radar using an active electronically scanned array (AESA) enables rapid antenna beam steering for Doppler and polarimetric radar observation measurements. An AESA consists of radiating elements, power amplifiers, attenuators, phase shifters, array controllers, and digital converters. This seminar describes introductory concepts of phased array radar and a digital twin, the AESA Simulator. The digital twin models both the AESA and weather radar returns, developed to explore and validate the optimal configuration of the APAR subsystems. The AESA Simulator has allowed NCAR/EOL to accelerate the timeline for engineering development of the APAR radar back end (RBE) and provides the necessary configurability to conform to the eventual AESA digital data acquisition and control interfaces as AESA and RBE development converge. Together, the simulator and RBE are used to evaluate/validate the radar at the system level.