Waveform considerations for dual-polarization Doppler weather radar with solid-state transmitters

Adequate sensitivity of weather radars using low-powered solid-state transmitter is achieved by using pulse compression waveforms. However, pulse compression waveforms have drawbacks of blind zone and range side lobes. In this paper, we present a methodology to address the major challenges in designing the waveforms for an X-band dual polarization Doppler radar operating with a solid-state transmitter. Here, frequency diversity wideband waveforms are proposed to mitigate low sensitivity of solid-state transmitters and the range eclipsing problem associated with pulse compression. An analysis of the performance of pulse compression using mismatched compression filters is reported. The performance of the proposed system is also quantified using signal and system simulations.