Performance Analysis on Terrain-Adaptive Clutter Map Algorithm for Ground Clutter Rejection of Weather Radar

Abstract

Weather radar systems can provide weather information of the ground, sea, and air in extensive spatial coverage in near real time. However, it becomes problematic when ground clutter signal exists around precipitation because strong signals of ground can cause a false precipitation report. A large percentage of land coverage of Korea consists of mountainous regions where ground clutter needs to be mitigated for more accurate prediction. Thus, it is considered necessary to introduce a new suitable ground clutter removal technique specifically adequate for Korea. In this paper, the C-Map(Clutter Map) method using raw radar signals is proposed for removing ground clutter using a terrain-adaptive clutter map. A clutter map is generated using raw radar signals(I/Q) of clear days, then it is subtracted from received radar signals in frequency domain. The proposed method is applied to the radar data acquired from Sobaeksan rain radar and the result shows that the clutter rejection ratio is about 91.17 %.