Direct digital synthesizer designs for dual-polarization transceiver modules

This is being submitted for the student paper track for the 35th Conference on Radar Meteorology. The Atmospheric Radar Research Laboratory (ARRC) of the University of Oklahoma is building a teamwork-oriented cylindrical, dual-pol, phased array radar, and this paper addresses the hardware development of the waveform generation portion of the project. Direct Digital Synthesizers (DDS) are being utilized to generate digital waveforms for the radar. DDSs will allow for smooth communication between array nodes and efficient beamsteering in this application so long as a synchronization technique ensures the operation of an accurate master clock. The paper will describe a technique for generating waveforms over multiple channels of the radar. Additionally, the architecture of each channel's transmitter will be examined. The functions, utilization, and synchronization scheme of DDSs in this application will also be discussed.