Update on signal processing upgrades for the National Weather Radar Testbed phased-array radar

The National Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT) located in Norman, Oklahoma was established to demonstrate the potential to simultaneously perform aircraft tracking, wind profiling, and weather surveillance as a multi-mission phased-array radar (MPAR). Since its inception, the system has undergone an extensive engineering evaluation and numerous hardware and software upgrades. Recently, a team of scientists, engineers, and software developers at the National Severe Storms Laboratory has been working on enhancing the real-time signal processing functionality of the NWRT PAR to bring it up to operational weather radar standards (such as those in the NEXRAD network) and to demonstrate new capabilities. This development is based on a modern and improved multi-processor/multi-computer signal processing environment which allows the implementation of both traditional and innovative real-time signal processing techniques. These include schemes to effectively remove clutter contamination from meteorological signals, methods to mitigate range and velocity ambiguities, and techniques that allow for faster data collection. This paper will report on the latest improvements to the NWRT PAR. These include the implementation of range oversampling techniques and the ability to perform adaptive scanning by exploiting electronic beam steering. We will also present a roadmap for signal processing upgrades that will provide researchers and users with an optimum platform for demonstrating and evaluating the MPAR concept.