Development of Real-Time, Multistatic Radar Networks for Severe Weather Prediction

Multistatic radar networks are capable of retrieving the three-dimensional wind field using bistatic radars coupled to a single transmitting radar. Multistatic networks offer several potential advantages over multi-Doppler retrieval using multiple monostatic radars. Because they only need to detect radiation scattered from the transmitting radar, bistatic radars are small, contain no moving parts, and do not require additional use of the electromagnetic spectrum. Additionally, bistatic radars are perfectly synched to the transmitting radar and estimate the bistatic velocity using a similarly sized volume of scatterers, which can mitigate errors in three-dimensional wind retrievals. Despite these potential advantages, implementation of multistatic radar networks for meteorological observation have been limited owing to difficulty in synchronization of the transmitting and bistatic radars, which has typically required expensive modifications to the transmitting radar.

The Advanced Radar Research Center at the University of Oklahoma has recently developed a technique to achieve synchronization using direct path signals that has negated the need for modification and direct communication between the transmitting and receiving radars. This technique has enabled production of low-cost (~$5,000) bistatic receivers and deployment of the first multistatic network using an operational WSR-88D site as the transmitting radar (Byrd et al. 2020). This presentation will describe an ongoing expansion and upgrade of this prototype network to a network of 6 receivers surrounding the KTLX WSR-88D in central Oklahoma capable of serving three-dimensional wind retrievals to National Weather Service meteorologists in real time. Example real-time, three-dimensional wind products will be presented using multi-Doppler analyses of severe weather events observed by the prototype network and compared with triple-Doppler retrievals and polarimetric observations from a network of monostatic radars to assess their accuracy and potential application.