A Man-Portable Doppler Radar System for Short-Range Military Weather Detection

BCI, under contract to the US Army Research Laboratory, has developed a Man-portable Doppler Radar (MPDR) which can be deployed by dismount soldiers in forward operating areas with a minimal size, weight, and power (SWaP) footprint. This radar providee adverse weather detection in short ranges (greater than 15km) to support forward-area Precision Airdrop (PAD), aviation operations including landing zones and weather hazard warnings. The MPDR system complements other atmospheric sensors such as Doppler LIDAR systems, demonstrating interoperability with existing power sources and computing nodes and eliminating custom support equipment that must be carried into the field. Software-defined radar transceivers and processing/control nodes allow for flexibility in the radar performance under different operating conditions and software-driven system upgrades, as well as extensibility of the radar sensor for other missions such as hard target detection for perimeter defense and air surveillance.

The Man-Portable Doppler Radar (MPDR) provides the Army with a short-range weather detection sensor that can be carried into the field by a single soldier or Pathfinder and deployed and operated with a minimal of user interaction. The radar supports air operations in data limited environments where weather radar coverage is unavailable and will increase landing zone, UAV operations, and airdrop mission safety. The MPDR complements other sensors such as LIDAR wind profilers which have severely limited or non-existent performance in any rain or snow conditions.

The MPDRs software-defined control and processing architecture and flexible radar sensor front-end allows multi-mission profiles to be created and implemented with only software-updates to the radar system. This enables the radar to be used for applications such as perimeter defense or air surveillance in addition to weather surveillance simply by changing the software configuration.

This paper will describe the high-level architecture of the MPDR system and a summary of the prototype radar test results from the summer of 2019. The paper will also discuss the modularity of the architecture to scale to larger systems such as gap-filling radars and small airport weather radars.