Development of the Sanya Incoherent Scatter Radar and Preliminary Results

Abstract

Led by the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, we have built a brand‐new modular active digital phased array, with all solid‐state transmission and digital receiving incoherent scatter radar (ISR) in Sanya (18.3°N, 109.6°E), a station in low latitude China called Sanya ISR (SYISR) since 2015. The development of SYISR involved the indoor design and development of key components, an outdoor prototype test, and the production and debugging of the entire array. The unique features of SYISR include a single‐channel directly connected T/R unit and antenna, a radar array monitoring and calibration network, environmental adaptability design and open architecture. The entire radar has 4,096 channels and 5,930 modules in total. All the technical indices, mainly including a >2 MW peak power, a 43 dBi antenna gain and a <120 K noise temperature, either meet or are superior to the designed value through an independent evaluation. Waveforms of single pulse, linear frequency modulation, Barker code, long pulse and alternating code have been implemented to meet multiple purposes. Four observational modes for ionospheric experiments, including zenith stare, perpendicular to geomagnetic field, meridian scan, and all sky scan, have been developed. We have implemented time domain decoding, frequency domain decoding, and statistical inversion methods in calculating the autocorrelation function and power spectra in signal processing. The preliminary experimental results on ionospheric parameters, plasma lines, irregularities and hard targets are reasonable and encouraging, which greatly enhances our confidence in achieving our scientific goals in the future.

Initial Ionospheric Ion Line Results and Evaluation by Sanya Incoherent Scatter Radar (SYISR)

“…In 2020, a prototype system of SYISR, which is 1/16 of the entire SYISR, first passed the tests including the amplitude and phase calibration among 256 channels, beam directivity confirmation by crossing the screen of the International Space Station, tropospheric wind detection and evaluation and observation of meteoroid fragmentation which are summarized in Yue et al. (2020, 2022). Then the whole SYISR was completed and put into normal operation in early 2021.…”

“…This radar is built to better understand the process of atmosphere-ionosphere-magnetosphere coupling and ionospheric scintillation in low-latitude areas in the East Asian region, where there are no direct ionospheric measurements (N e , T e , T i , and V i ) in the whole E and F regions. In 2020, a prototype system of SYISR, which is 1/16 of the entire SYISR, first passed the tests including the amplitude and phase calibration among 256 channels, beam directivity confirmation by crossing the screen of the International Space Station, tropospheric wind detection and evaluation and observation of meteoroid fragmentation which are summarized in Yue et al (2020Yue et al ( , 2022. Then the whole SYISR was completed and put into normal operation in early 2021.…”

Ionospheric Pre‐Sunrise Uplift: Comparison of Sanya Incoherent Scatter Radar Observations and Numerical Simulations

“…According to Yue et al. (2022), the spatial‐temporal resolution of SYISR depends on the observational mode and waveforms. Generally, the time resolution decreases when the beam number increases.…”

“…Furthermore, the initial guess error in the least square fitting processing algorithm could also cause retrieved data errors. But this factor can be ignored because we derive electron density from raw power directly rather than fitting the autocorrelation function (ACF) for BC measurements here (Yue et al., 2022). We want to emphasize one point here.…”

“…In this study, we used multiple AC-measured ionospheric parameters for diagnosis purposes on another day. The detailed processing of AC measurement can be found in Yue et al (2022).…”