Rain Radar – Remote Sensing Laboratory

Based on previous developments (X-band GB-SAR), the Rain Radar is a new approach in meteorological radar technique to get complete Doppler spectra of hydrometeors in a height between 100 and 8000 meters. It is highly reconfigurable for different cell resolution (1.5m, 15m 50m & 100m). It will be able to extract appart from rain rates, the raindrop velocity. This Rain Radar operates in FM-CW mode at X-band (9.65GHz), the antennas are TV-SAT offset parabolic reflectors. We are working in its hardware configuration and calibration (reflectivity and Doppler detection).

Two commercial TV-SAT offset reflectors are used as antennas (feeders are made in our facilities). This Picture shows the System pointing towards Collserola Range in order to adjust the electronics

This is a 2D plot that shows rain intensity (colour) and rain drop velocity vs altitude. Notice that above 2.000m the precipitation is upwards because of convective clouds.

The last inprovement has been the substitution of the feeders of the parabolic reflectors. Taking advantage of additive manufacturing, we have built a pair of corrugated circular horn antennas with PLA, that have been metalized by means of copper electroplating.

Corrugated horn antenna after copper electrodeposition

Both antennas, the corrugated horn antenna and the parabolic reflector have been measured (thanks, Sebastián Blanch) in our Anechoic Chamber in order to check their performance.

The reflector antenna was mounted in the positioner in the anechoic chamber

H-plane radiation pattern (Co/Cross pol) of the corrugated horn antenna

E-plane radiation pattern (Co/Cross pol) of the corrugated horn antenna

E-plane radiation patern (Co/Cross pol) of the parabolic reflector and corrugated horn antenna

H-plane radiation patern (Co/Cross pol) of the parabolic reflector and corrugated horn antenna

Last winter we had some snow days in Barcelona, we could check the system under these conditions.

During last February and March we could enjoy two snow days. Notice that in this period we still were using rectangular horn antennas as feeders of the reflector antennas

Take a look at this video, it shows the march, 20th 2018 SnowStorm evolution in Barcelona.

During last months we are working hard in a FULL-POL version of the RADAR. Please, stay tuned.

Preliminary experiments with the FULL-POL version of the radar

Take a look at this video, it shows the feb.18th 2018 SnowStorm evolution in Barcelona.