A Novel Approach to Reducing Dealiasing Errors for Staggered Pulse Repetition Time Waveforms

Implementation, integration, and testing of Staggered Pulse-Repetition-Time (PRT) waveforms for improved range and velocity ambiguity mitigation is well underway for the NEXRAD network. The operational use of Staggered PRT waveform is expected to replace the batch waveform used at intermediate levels of NEXRAD volume coverage patterns. Early analysis of Staggered PRT output has shown improvement in the quality of reflectivity, spectrum width, differential reflectivity, cross-correlation coefficient, and differential phase over batch output. However, a major hindrance is the unexpected increase in dealiasing errors associated with the Staggered PRT waveform. In this paper, we review the implementation and integration and provide some results of testing Staggered PRT on the NEXRAD WSR-88D testbed. Additionally, we offer a novel approach to mitigating dealiasing errors associated with the Staggered PRT waveform.