A Method to Increase the Scanning Rate of Phased-Array Weather Radar

To increase the scanning rate of phased-array radar by a factor of two or more, the contiguous transmission of two or more pulses toward two or more directions and simultaneous reception of weather echoes from those directions is employed. However, if there are strong gradients of reflectivity, mainlobe-to-sidelobe coupled echoes contaminate wanted mainlobe-to-mainlobe (m-m) coupled echoes and limit the accurate analysis of weather. To retrieve m-m echoes, a technique is derived that restores wanted m-m voltages for antenna sidelobe levels as high as -30 dB and the difference in echo power of 100 dB for two simultaneously sampled beam directions. The technique is demonstrated using data collected with the WSR-88D radar and simulating PAR operations.