Dual-polarized Phased Array Technology in Weather Radar

Polarimetric Doppler weather radar is used in most widely high-accuracy weather radar by now. The echo by using different polarized can be used to identify the characteristic of cloud and rain in detail. However the antennas used in polarimetric Doppler weather radar are almost reflector antennas. Compared with the phased array, there are systematically shortens such as weakness in suppression over the strong-interference caused by sidelobe, inability of depress ground clutter due to fixed lobe and slow scanning for cubic scan. Based on these problems, it is necessary to design the dual-polarized phased array in the polarimetric Doppler weather radar. Through more efforts, a dual-polarized phased array is manufactured and tested, and it is used successfully in the first polarimetric phased array Doppler weather radar in China and significantly increases the performance. In this paper, the key technology and development of dual-polarized phased array in the polarimetric Doppler weather radar is presented with hope that more experts get knowledge of it and give support to it, and make it deserve itself to weather forecasting better.