Abstract
In this paper, a system-specific phased-array radar system simulator was developed, based on a time-domain modeling and simulation method, mainly for system performance evaluation of the future Spectrum-Efficient National Surveillance Radar (SENSR). The goal of the simulation study was to establish a complete data quality prediction method based on specific radar hardware and electronics designs. The distributed weather targets were modeled using a covariance matrix-based method. The data quality analysis was conducted using Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) Level-II data as a basis, in which the impact of various pulse compression waveforms and channel electronic instability on weather radar data quality was evaluated. Two typical weather scenarios were employed to assess the simulator’s performance, including a tornado case and a convective precipitation case. Also, modeling of some demonstration systems was evaluated, including a generic weather radar, a planar polarimetric phased-array radar, and a cylindrical polarimetric phased-array radar. Corresponding error statistics were provided to help multifunction phased-array radar (MPAR) designers perform trade-off studies.
Highlights
The challenge of evaluating data quality from a ground or airborne phased-array radar (PAR) system, such as multifunction phased-array radar (MPAR)/Spectrum-Efficient National Surveillance Radar (SENSR) [1], posted the need of developing an integrated system that is suitable for both simulation and measurement validations
As this paper mainly focuses on polarimetric moment evaluation, data quality of Doppler moments such as radial velocity and spectrum width are not listed in later sections
We can see from the comparison of the results that, in terms of overall data quality, a full-size Cylindrical Polarimetric Phased-Array Radar (CPPAR) is expected to obtain the results closest to the generic radar example
Summary
The challenge of evaluating data quality from a ground or airborne phased-array radar (PAR) system, such as multifunction phased-array radar (MPAR)/Spectrum-Efficient National Surveillance Radar (SENSR) [1], posted the need of developing an integrated system that is suitable for both simulation and measurement validations. Zrnic [2] described a procedure for simulating weather-like Doppler spectra and signals, in which time series of single-polarization weather radar was generated. Cheong et al [5] introduced a weather radar simulator which derived time-series signals from the output of a numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. Byrd et al [7] introduced a polarimetric phased-array weather radar simulator, which evaluated the impacts of cross-polar fields on weather observations and included various transmit modes. Barcaroli et al [8] presented a validation procedure to assess the ability of a polarimetric weather radar simulator to deal with raindrop-size distributions and outputs generated by NWP models. Schvartzman et al [9] introduced a weather radar simulator which uses existing Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) measurement as truth, and it was still based on a traditional frequency-domain method for polarimetric time-series generation
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