The Impact of Signal Processing on the Range-Weighting Function for Weather Radars

Abstract

he range-weighting function (RWF) determines how individual scatterer contributions are weighted as a function of range to produce the meteorological data associated with a single resolution volume. The RWF is commonly defined in terms of the transmitter pulse envelope and the receiver filter impulse response, and it determines the radar range resolution. However, the effective RWF also depends on the range-time processing involved in producing estimates of meteorological variables. This is a third contributor to the RWF that has become more significant in recent years as advanced range-time processing techniques have become feasible for real-time implementation on modern radar systems. In this work, a new formulation of the RWF for weather radars that incorporates the impact of signal processing is proposed. Following the derivation based on a general signal processing model, typical scenarios are used to illustrate the variety of RWFs that can result from different range-time signal processing techniques. Finally, the RWF is used to measure range resolution and the range correlation of meteorological data.