A low-power high-resolution broad-band radar using a pulse compression technique for meteorological application

A new high-resolution Ku-band Doppler radar for meteorological applications has been developed. With the new system design, the radar can accurately measure the radar reflectivity factor with 4-m resolution over a range from 40 m to several kilometers for 100-mW power using a pulse compression technique. Details of the system design, signal processing algorithm, and data acquisition procedures are described. To demonstrate the accuracy of the system, the radar reflectivity measurements are compared with the Joss-Waldvogel disdrometer measurements, and fairly good agreement is shown. The ability of the system to capture the backscattered signal and Doppler spectrum from rain volume at low altitude with high resolution is demonstrated for both convective- and stratiform-type rain events.