Design trade-offs for airborne phased array radar for atmospheric research

This paper discusses the design options and tradeoffs of the key performance parameters, technology, and costs of dual-polarized and two-dimensional active phased array antenna for an atmospheric airborne radar system. The design proposed provides high-resolution measurements of the air motion and rainfall characteristics of very large storms that are difficult to observe with a ground-based radar system. Parameters such as antenna size, wavelength, beamwidth, transmit power, spatial resolution, along-track resolution, and polarization have been evaluated. The paper presents a performance evaluation of the radar system. Preliminary results from the antenna front-end section that corresponds to a Line Replacement Unit (LRU) are presented.