High-Temporal-Resolution Capabilities of the National Weather Radar Testbed Phased-Array Radar

Abstract

Since 2007 the advancement of the National Weather Radar Testbed Phased-Array Radar (NWRT PAR) hardware and software capabilities has been supporting the implementation of high-temporal-resolution (?1 min) sampling. To achieve the increase in computational power and data archiving needs required for high-temporal-resolution sampling, the signal processor was upgraded to a scalable, Linux-based cluster with a distributed computing architecture. The development of electronic adaptive scanning, which can reduce update times by focusing data collection on significant weather, became possible through functionality added to the radar control interface and real-time controller. Signal processing techniques were implemented to address data quality issues, such as artifact removal and range-and-velocity ambiguity mitigation, absent from the NWRT PAR at its installation. The hardware and software advancements described above have made possible the development of conventional and electronic scanning capabilities that achieve high-temporal-resolution sampling. Those scanning capabilities are sector- and elevation-prioritized scanning, beam multiplexing, and electronic adaptive scanning. Each of these capabilities and related sampling trade-offs are explained and demonstrated through short case studies.