Polarimetric FMCW weather radar

This study which was conducted as a Master´s thesis, is a radar system working at X band. In this system, a 2 Watt continuous electromagnetic wave which is modulated with frequency ramp of 30 MHz bandwidth is generated and radiated through TX antenna. The scattered signal from the hydrometeors is multiplied with the transmitted one and beat signal is obtained. By this deramping process the range information of the target is converted into frequency domain. Data is processed in Matlab after passing through analog to digital converters. The range and velocity information is obtained with signal processing algorithms. Verification of the system is performed by buildings and cars whose range and velocities are known. To estimate the amount of water in air more effectively, different reflection characteristics of water particles in the horizontal and vertical polarization are used. The powers of the returned signals at different polarization, phase and correlation parameters are used to estimate the amount of particles.