A super-fast scanning technique study for an on-airport weather radar

We assess the prospects for detecting a dry microburst core in the vicinity of an airport using a super-fast scanning (SFS) technique. In particular we propose a 20-beam SFS radar system and develop a system specification delivering a similar performance to a conventional mechanical scanning terminal Doppler weather radar (CMS-TDWR). The performance is compared in terms of the accuracy by which the three spectral moments can be estimated. These parameters were calculated using the signal models generally accepted by the industry for a microburst, for both scanning systems, and sampling at the same range intervals. The simulated results show that a 20-beam SFS X-band radar could update the weather information at twenty times the rate of the CMS-TDWR, but the radar would need a peak power of 45 kW. Whilst this peak power requirement is considerably less than the CMS-TDWR radar, this may be difficult to achieve for an electronically scanned array. The research emphasis is on developing and analysing the potential of the SFS technique, and this technique can be applied to improve the weather radar scanning rate once phased array radars of adequate peak power are feasible