Airborne W-band Cloud Radar (WCR)

Airborne W-band Cloud Radar

Operating in the W-band atmospheric window at 95 GHz, these fully polarimetric radars achieve high sensitivity using 1.8 kW peak power klystron amplifiers.  The high operating frequency allows small (30 cm diameter) antennas to generate very narrow beamwidths (0.7 deg). A single radar system can be switched between several antennas allowing simultaneous sampling above, below and to the side of the aircraft.

Systems have been installed on the following aircraft

  • University of Wyoming King Air 200T
  • NRC Canada Convair 580
  • CRL (Japan) Grumman Gulfstream II
WCR Features
  • 1.8 kW peak power Extended Interaction Klystron Amplifier
  • 12″ Lens antenna (0.7 deg. beamwidth) or 18″ Cassegrain antenna (0.4 deg. beamwidth)
  • Complex T/R network with 5 antenna port
  • High performance data acquisition system
    • 16-bit, 120 MS/s digital receiver
    • complex waveform definition allowing user configured pulse sequence on five antenna port
    • Real-time digital pulse compression

W-band cloud radar with five antenna ports installed on University of Wyoming King Air

Simultaneous up-looking and down-looking reflectivity and Doppler data