Automatic clutter mitigation in the WSR-88D, design, evaluation, and implementation

The WSR-88D Radar Operations Center (ROC) has qualified, integrated, and implemented a new method of automatically identifying and filtering areas of radar returns containing ground clutter. The Clutter Mitigation Decision (CMD) algorithm is the result of several years of development at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and is based on fuzzy logic analysis of several parameters. During the implementation, ROC and NCAR engineers and scientists refined the algorithm to enhance performance and allow for effective application in the WSR-88D. The algorithm is designed for efficient integration into the radar signal processor, employing available software features. For the initial implementation, the ROC team developed an effective system architecture, incorporating automatic clutter filter application for the lowest elevation scans where anomalously propagated clutter is a significant problem. The team also incorporated CMD into the off-line clutter map generation process. CMD was deployed on the WSR-88D network, beginning in the spring of 2009, in Software Build 11.0.

This paper discusses the algorithm evolution and performance, summarizes integration efforts, and documents the technical evaluation. The paper includes a discussion of future integration of polarimetric enhancements.