Ground-based measurement technologies: Development of the CRL Okinawa bistatic polarimetric radar

Abstract

Communications Research Laboratory (CRL) has developed a new C-band multi-parameter Doppler radar system with a bistatic Doppler network to establish a next-generation technology of rain observation for meteorological and hydrological applications such as weather forecasts and run-off analysis in predicting floods. This new radar is named COBRA (CRL Okinawa Bistatic polarimetric Radar). COBRA has polarization, monostatic Doppler, and bistatic Doppler observation functions. The targets of this system are typhoons, Baiu-frontal rainfall, meso-scale precipitation in subtropical zones, and clear air turbulence. To measure the polarization characteristics of rainfall, the main radar can select one of six kinds of polarizations for every transmitting pulse, and then both the horizontal and vertical polarizations are measured simultaneously by two receiver systems.