The ATD S-Pol/Bistatic Radar
The ATD S-Pol/Bistatic Radar
Tammy Weckwerth and Josh Wurman are PIs for the bistatic system in CASES97. Major contributors to this system include Josh Wurman, Mitch Randall, Chris Burghart, and others.
Bistatic has tremendous advantages over conventional multi-Doppler systems when it comes to constructing wind/particle velocity vectors in real-time. For bistatic, both the central radar and the remote (bistatic) receiver sample the same volume of the atmosphere at exactly the same time. Each receiver determines a different component of a velocity vector. No gridding, averaging, or interpolation techniques are required. Simple vector sums of velocity components at the same space and time, and in radar coordinates are produced at a central receiving station.
The images are for a sequence of scans during a storm on 19-May-1997. The bistatic receiving station providing data for these images is located at about 30 Km and 71 degrees from the center of the polar coordinate grid (range rings are at 10km spacing); the center of the bistatic dual-Doppler lobe is found by extending a bisector to the SSE of the baseline joining the two systems (S-Pol and the North bistatic system). Vectors within this lobe are generally considered to be computed reliably, assuming adequate SNR.
Two other remote bistatic receivers are deployed for CASES, providing both overlapping and spatially extended lobes. One of the receivers is at 125 degrees and 33 Km from S-Pol, whiile the other is at 140 degrees and 60 Km from S-Pol.
In the images, note the storm movement and consistency of vectors between frames.
| S-Pol Bistatic Images from CASES97 | |
|---|---|
 03:08 |
 03:09 |
 03:11 |
 03:16 |
 03:19 |
 03:25 |