Performance of Minimum Mean-Square Error Beam Forming for Polarimetric Phased Array Weather Radar

Abstract

In this paper, the development of a polarimetric phased array weather radar, which consists of a dual-polarized antenna with 2-D circular planar phase-array elements, is discussed. The radar is capable of measuring the 3-D rainfall distribution in less than several tens of seconds. Digital beamforming (DBF) is an important component in the development process of the phased array radar. In this paper, precipitation radar signal simulations are performed taking into consideration radar concepts in order to discuss the estimation accuracy of polarimetric precipitation profiles (differential reflectivity, specific differential phase, and copolar correlation coefficient) with two DBF methods that are based on Fourier and minimum mean-square error (MMSE) methods. A comparison of the performance of the two methods indicates that MMSE is superior in accuracy because of the effect of a stable and a robust main lobe and adaptively suppressed side lobes. MMSE also provides precipitation measurements eliminating the directional dependence of a beam pattern for improving the accuracy of measurements. It is also shown that the estimated accuracies of the precipitation profiles are almost independent of the number of pulses.