New Simulation Study of The Impact of Surface Clutters on Solid-State Spaceborne Precipitation Radar

Solid-state radar is becoming more and more important for today's airborne and spaceborne weather radars. Surface clutter echoes through both antenna and range sidelobes from pulse compression can severely interfere with the atmospheric radar returns near the earth surface. A new radar simulator is developed to study the impacts of clutter interference from different types of earth surface. Simplified antenna pattern and pulse compression filter response models are used to investigate the worst case scenarios with reduced computation requirements. It is found for GSM/TRMM type of radars, the antenna sidelobe is the dominant source of surface clutter interference when the pulse compression range sidelobe is higher than -60 dB, while the distribution of clutter-contaminated radar resolution volumes depends on multiple factors including sensor and environment.