SoMAS - Research and Development of Phased Array Weather Radar

Mr. Kazuomi Morotomi of the Japan Radio Company JRC, Japan speaks to SoMAS at the Topics in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences seminar on October 26, 2022 on the topic "Research and Development of Phased Array Weather Radar."

Abstract
Urban areas in Japan suffer from more and more disasters by severe weather such as heavy rainfall or tornadoes recently. Particularly around Tokyo in summer seasons, rapidly developing cumulonimbi produce heavy rain; occasionally causing floods.

To observe the developing stage of cumulonimbi for analyzing and predicting severe weather, weather radars are expected to operate for volume scan of whole three-dimensional space with high spatial resolution and short observation cycle. With conventional weather radars with parabolic antennas, however, it takes five to ten minutes to finish volume scan of limited elevation angles.

We independently developed a prototype of single polarization X-band phased array weather radar. By adopting digital beamforming technique for simultaneously forming multiple receiving beams, it takes only 30 seconds to finish volume scan of the cylindrical space with a radius of 80 km and height of 20 km.

We installed this radar in the summer of 2015 in Chiba city about 45 km east away from Central Tokyo and started experimental operation. With this radar, we have succeeded in observing some severe storm cases.

In the presentation, we plan to introduce the outline of weather radar, the mechanism of phased array weather radar, and observation results.

For more information about the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, please visit https://somas.stonybrook.edu