High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Radar (HIWRAP)

This paper describes the development of the High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP) which is funded under the NASA Instrument Incubator Program (IIP) . HIWRAP is a dual-frequency (Ka- and Ku-band), dual-beam (30deg and 40deg incidence angle), conical scan, Doppler radar system designed for operation on the high-altitude (65,000 ft) Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). It utilizes solid state transmitters along with novel pulse compression scheme that will result in a system that is considerably more compact in size, lighter in weight, less power consumption, and ultimately cost significantly less than radars currently in use for precipitation and Doppler wind measurements. By combining measurements at Ku- and Ka-band, HIWRAP will be able to image winds by measuring volume backscattering from clouds and precipitation.