Improved Retrieval of Reflectivity Factor for Airborne Weather Radar

Abstract

For the airborne weather radar signal processing, the intensity of the meteorological targets is represented by the physical quantity called reflectivity factor. When observing the middle-or long-range meteorological targets at low altitude from a high-altitude radar platform, due to the incomplete beam filling, the retrieval result of the reflectivity factor is much less than the actual value. In this paper, we firstly introduce a beam filling coefficient into the weather radar equation and then present its estimation method based on the real-time radar operating parameters. The validity of the proposed method is then verified by processing the raw-data of the simulated meteorological targets.