Design of a New Antenna System for a Meteorological Radiosonde Tracking Radar

Abstract

Every day on television there are weather forecast programs for several days in advance. Forecasted weather changes are obtained by analyzing and modeling the processed data collected from observing stations. One of the problems in carrying out measurements of atmospheric parameters is the tracking of a meteorological radiosonde in the air and providing two-way communication with it and the ground observing station. A new antenna system consisting of two antenna arrays is suggested for a meteorological radiosonde tracking radar. The small 4-element antenna array with a wide 35° beam switching in four directions is used in the near radar region. The small antenna array is suitable for quick target tracking at the initial stage of the weather balloon flight with high angular velocity. The large 48-element antenna array with a narrow 7° beam switching in four directions is used in the far radar region. Circular patch antennas are used as radiating elements. The large antenna array consists of eight 6-elements subarrays. The suggested design of the antenna was analyzed by using of ANSYS HFSS software. The proposed 52-element antenna system is compared with the existing one, but 24 elements larger. The paper contains the description of the antenna system and the modeling results.