e-Article
A New Portable 449-MHz Spaced Antenna Wind Profiler Radar
Document Type
Periodical
Author
Source
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on. 50(9):3544-3553 Sep, 2012
Subject
Language
ISSN
0196-2892
1558-0644
1558-0644
Abstract
This paper presents the design of a 449-MHz radar for wind profiling, with a focus on modularity and solid-state transmitter design. It is one of the first wind profiler radars to use low-cost Laterally Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor (LDMOS) power amplifiers (PAs) combined with spaced antennas. The system is portable and designed for 2–3 month deployments. The transmitter PA consists of three 1-kW peak power modules which feed 54 antenna elements arranged in a hexagonal array, scalable directly to 126 elements. The PA is operated in pulsed mode with a 10% duty cycle at 54% power added efficiency. The antenna array is designed to have low sidelobes, confirmed by measurements. The radar was operated in Boulder, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah. Atmospheric wind vertical and horizontal components at altitudes between 200 m and 4 km were calculated from the collected atmospheric return signals.