Rain Radar

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).

The main reflector was fully characterized in our Anechoic Chamber

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.

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

We tested 3D printed feeders for the main radar reflectors

This picture shows the feeder after metallizing it