NCAR/TN-331+STR

NCAR TECHNICAL NOTE

i
I
-

May

1989

Signal Processing
for Atmospheric Radars

R. Jeffrey Keeler
Richard E. Passarelli

ATMOSPHERIC TECHNOLOGY DIVISION

NATIONAL

CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH

BOULDER, COLORADO

TBSIE OF COTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS .....................

iii

LIST OF FIGURES .........................

LIST OF TABLES ...................
PREFACE.

..

v
.

..

.vii

..

i.......................

1.

Purpose and scope .................

2.
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.1.4
2.2
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.2.3
2.2.4
2.2.5
2.2.6

General characteristics of atmospheric radars.

Characteristics of processing ..........
Sampling ...................
Noise ......
...............
Scattering ...............
Signal to noise ratio (SNR) ..........
Types of atmospheric radars ..........
Microwave radars .
...........
ST/MST radars or wind profilers .......
FM-CW radars ..
..............
Mobile radars ............
..
Lidar ............
.......
Acoustic sounders .
..........

3
3
3
4
5
6
6
7
8
8
9
10
11

3.
3.1
3.2
3.2.1
3.2.2
3.2.3
3.2.4
3.3
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.3.3

Doppler power spectrum moment estimation .

....
General features of the Doppler power spectrum.
Frequency domain spectral moment estimation .
Fast Fourier transform techniques .
....
Maximum entropy techniques ..........
Maximum likelihood techniques .
.......
Classical spectral moment computation .....
Time domain spectral moment estimation. .....
Geometric interpretations ...........
"Pulse pair" estimators ...........
Circular spectral moment computation for

13
14
18
18
20
23
25
27
27
28

3.3.4
3.4
3.4.1
3.4.2
3.4.3
4.
4.1
4.1.1
4.1.2
4.1.3
4.2
4.2.1

sampled data. .
.............
Poly pulse pair techniques .....
Uncertainties in spectrum moment estimators .
Reflectivity. ...
............
Velocity. . .
.....
. ......
Velocity spectrum width ...........

31
33
.

Signal processing to eliminate bias and artifacts.

Doppler techniques for ground clutter suppression
Antenna and analog signal considerations. ...
Frequency domain filtering. .........
Time domain filtering .............
Range/velocity ambiguity resolution .......
Resolution of velocity ambiguities ......
iii

35
35
36
37
43
43
44
45
46
50
51

4.2.2
4.3

Resolution of range ambiguities .......

Polarization switching consequences .......

55
56

5.
5.1
5.1.1
5.1.2
5.1.3
5.1.4
5.2
5.2.1
5.2.2
5.3
5.4

Exploratory signal processing techniques . ....

Pulse compression ....
..........
Advantages of pulse compression .
......
Disadvantages of pulse compression.
......
Ambiguity function.
..
Comparison with multiple frequency scheme .
Adaptive filtering algorithms
.........
Adaptive filtering applications .......
Adaptive antenna applications ..
.....
Multi-channel processing. ............
A priori information. .............

57
57
58
59
61
63
63
64
68
69
70

6.
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4

Signal processor implementation .........

Signal processing control functions .....
Signal Z?D conversion and calibration ......
Reflectivity processing ...
..........
Thresholding for data quality .........

71
71
74
76
78

7.
7.1
7.1.1
7.1.2
7.1.3
7.1.4
7.2
7.3
7.3.1
7.3.2
7.3.3
7.3.4
7.3.5
7.3.6
7.4
7.4.1
7.4.2
7.4.3
7.4.4
7.4.5

Trends in signal processing. ............

Realization factors ...............
Digital signal processor chips .......
Storage media .................
Display technology .
..............
Commercial radar processors ..........
Trends in programmability of DSP. ........
Short term expectations ..........
....
Range/velocity ambiguities .........
Ground clutter filtering ..........
Waveforms for fast scanning radars ......
Data compression. .............
Artificial intelligence based feature extraction
Real time 3D weather image processing ..
...
Long term expectations .
............
Advanced hardware ....... ..
Optical interconnects and processing .....
Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Electronically scanned array antennas .....
Adaptive systems ...............

81
81
81
82
83
83
84
85
85
86
86
87
87
87
87
88
88
88
88
89

8.
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4

Conclusions. . ...................
Assessment of our past. .............
Recommendations for our future .
........
Acceptance of new techniques ...........
Acknowledgements. ..............

91
91
92
93
93

ACRONYM LIST ...........................

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......

95

...........

....

iv

97

TIST OF FJIGRES

Fig 3.1

of
Doppler power spectrum (128 point periodogram)
Estimated
typical weather echo in white noise.
parameters are velocity ~ 0.4 Vax velocity spectrum
10 dB.
width ~ .04 Vmax, and SNR

15

Fig 3.2

of the complex
representation
dimensional
Three
Radius of helix
autocorrelation function as a helix.
Ps;
proportional to total signal power,
Rs(0) is
rotation rate of helix is proportional to velocity, V;
width of envelope is inversely proportional to velocity
Delta function Rn(0) represents
spectrum width, W.
noise power.

29

Fig 3.3

Periodogram power spectrum plotted on unit circle in the

Note velocity aliasing point, the Nyquist
z-plane.
velocity, at z=-l.

32

Fig 3.4

Comparison of classical and circular (pulse pair) first

Classical estimate is determined by
moment estimators.
linear weighting of spectrum estimate and circular
estimate, by sinusoidal weighting.

34

Fig 3.5

Velocity error as function of spectrum width and SNR.

normalized to Nyquist interval,
Spectrum width is
M is number of sample pairs and
vn=W/2Vmx=2WTs/X.
error is normalized to Nyquist velocity interval, 2va =
Small circles represent simulation values
2Vmax.
(Doviak and Zrnic, 1984).

39

Fig 3.6

Width error as a function of spectrum width and SNR.

normalized to Nyquist interval,
Spectrum width is

42

vn=W/2Vmax=2Wrs/X.

is

number of sample pairs

and

error is normalized to Nyquist interval, 2Vmax. Small

circles represent simulation values (Doviak and Zrnic,
1984).
Fig 4.la

Clutter filter frequency response for a 3 pole infinite

For
impulse response (IIR) high pass elliptic filter.
1
5
rpm
and scan rate of
ground clutter width of 0.6 ms
stop
this filter gives about 40 dB suppression. V =
16 ms - (Hamidi
band. Vp = pass band cutoff, Vmax =
and Zrnic, 1981).

47

Fig 4.lb

Implementation of 3rd order IIR clutter suppression

filter; z- 1 is 1 PRT delay. K1 - K4 are filter coefficients (Hamidi and Zrnic, 1981).

48

Fig 5.1

Ambiguity diagram for single FM chirped pulse waveform

with TB=10.
T
is range dimension.
0 is velocity
dimension. Targets distributed in (r,q) space contribute
to the filter
output proportional to the ambiguity
function.
For atmospheric targets,
Doppler shift
frequencies are typically very small relative to pulse
bandwidth (Rihaczek, 1969).

62

Fig 5.2

Prediction error surface for 2 weight adaptive filter.

The LMS algorithm estimates the negative gradient of the
quadratic error and steps toward the minimum mean square
error (mse). The optimum weight vector is
W* = (0.65,
-2.10).
If the input statistics
change so that the
error surface varies with time, the adaptive weights
will track this change (Widrow and Stearns, 1985).

65

Fig 5.3

Adaptive filter
structure.
The desired response (dk) is
determined by the application.
The adaptive filter.
coefficients (Wk) and/or the output signal (Yk) are the
parameters used for spectrum moment estimation (Widrow
and Stearns, 1985).

66

Fig 6.1

Block diagram of a typical signal processor.

26

vi

LSTr OF TAHBI
Table 1

Comparison of remote sensor sampling schemes and rates.

Table 2

Characteristics of several popular windows when applied

to time series data analysis (Marple, 1987).

20

Table 3

Expressions for variance of velocity estimators at high

SNR.
Assumes Gaussian spectra in white noise, low
normalized velocity width (Wn=W/2Vmx) and large M.
Expressions
apply to both pulse pair and Fourier
transform estimators.

38

Table 4

Expressions for variance of width estimators at high

SNR.
Assumes Gaussian spectra in white noise, low
normalized velocity width (Wn=W/2Vmax)
and large M.
Expressions
apply to both pulse pair and Fourier
transform estimators.

41

vii

PiRFACE

This review of signal processing for atmospheric radars was originally

written as Chapter 20 of the book Radar in Meteorology, edited by Dave Atlas
(1989) for the Proceedings of the 40th Anniversary and Louis Battan Memorial
Radar Meteorology Conference.
overview

of

signal

processing

We have attempted to give the reader an

techniques

and

the

technology

that

are

applicable to the atmospheric remote sensing tools of weather radar, lidar,

ST/MST radars and wind profilers.

This NCAR Technical Note includes the signal processing

relevant references in a single document.

chapter and the

The text has had minor editing

and the references have been slightly expanded over the version published in
Radar in Meteorology.

We hope that this Technical Note will assist the many individuals who want a

better understanding of signal processing to achieve that goal.

R. Jeffrey Keeler

Richard E. Passarelli

March 1989

ix

1.

PURPOSE AND SODFE

Signal processing is perhaps the area of atmospheric remote sensing where

science and engineering make their point of closest contact.
Signal
processing offers challenges to engineers who enjoy developing state-of-theart systems and to scientists who enjoy being at the crest of the wave in

observing atmospheric phenomena in unique ways.

The primary function of radar signal processing is the accurate, efficient

extraction of information from radar echoes.

A typical pulsed Doppler radar

system samples data at 1000 range bins at 1 kilohertz pulse repetition

frequency

(PRF), generating approximately 3 million samples per second

(typically in-phase (I) and quadrature phase (Q) components from a linear
channel and often a log receiver). These "time series", in their raw form,
convey little information that is of direct use in determining the state of

the atmosphere.

The volume of time series data is sufficiently large that

storage for later analysis is impractical except for limited regions of time

and space.

The data must be processed in real time to reduce its volume and
to convert it to more useful form.
In this paper the current state of signal processing for atmospheric radars
(weather radars, ST/MST radars or wind profilers, and lidars) shall be
discussed along with how signal processing is currently optimized for
various applications and remote sensors.
The focus shall be on signal
processing for weather radar systems but the techniques and conclusions
apply equally well to ST/MST radars and lidars. Zrnic (1979a) has given an
excellent review of spectral moment estimation for weather radars and
Woodman (1985) has done the same for MST radars.
Problem areas and
promising avenues for future research shall be identified.
Finally, we
shall discuss the scientific and technological forces that are likely to
shape the future of atmospheric radar signal processing.
We will differentiate between "signal processing" (the topic of this review)
and "data processing" in the following way. "Signal processing" is that set
1

of operations performed on the analog or digital signals for efficiently

extracting desired information or measuring some attribute of the signal.
For atmospheric radars this information is often referred to as the "base
parameter estimates". Fundamental base parameters are:
Radar reflectivity factor

dBZ

Radial velocity
Velocity spectrum width1

V
W

ms- 1
ms-l

In the course of extracting these estimates, signal processing algorithms

will improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR) through filtering or averaging,

mitigate the effects of interfering echoes such as ground clutter, remove

ambiguities such as range or velocity aliasing, and reduce the input data
The end result of an effective signal
rate by a significant factor.
processing scheme is to provide minimum mean squared error estimates of the
base parameters along with the expected error or a measure of the degree of

confidence that can be placed on the estimates (e.g., the SNR). Note that
signal processing is primarily used in atmospheric remote sensing as an
estimation procedure as well as a detection process as in some aviation
applications. The emphasis is on making estimates of atmospheric parameters
or meteorological events.
"Data processing", on the other hand, takes up where signal processing
leaves off -- although the line of demarcation is not razor sharp. Data
processing algorithms take the base parameter estimates and further process

them so that they convey information that is of direct use to the radar
For example, data processing techniques imply display generation,
user.
data navigation to a desired coordinate system, wind profile analyses, data
syntheses from several Doppler radars or other sensors, applying physical
constraints to the measured data, and forecasts or "nowcasts" of severe
weather hazards.
Many aspects of data processing are covered in other
chapters.

1 The width is defined as the square root of the second

central moment of the spectral power distribution.
2

2.

There are two main

classes of

Electromagnetic radars
systems.

CIRACJERSLR'LCS OF AICMY4SERIC RADARS

GENRA

"radar"

--

electromagnetic

and acoustic.

include microwave, UHF, VHF, infrared and optical

Acoustic radars

The signal

are only briefly described here.

processing techniques employed for all these systems are similar (Serafin
and Strauch, 1978).

2.1

ClARACTERISTICS OF IRDCESSING
are nearly identical

Although the processing techniques

atmospheric

radars,

the

way

in

which

this

for the various

backscattered

or

partially

reflected radiation is sampled, the principle noise sources, and the nature
of the scattering mechanisms are different.

2.1.1 Sampling
Because electromagnetic
less than 1 im,
constraints

radars employ wavelengths

from several

meters

to

they must use different sampling techniques. There are two

(Ts)

on the sample time spacing

of the backscattered signal.

The first is that the backscattered signal should be coherent from sampleto-sample, i.e., the motion among the scatterers should be small compared to
the wavelength so that their relative positions produce highly correlated
echoes from sample-to-sample.

The nominal duration of this correlation is

called the coherence time (Nathanson, 1969), i.e.,

T s < tcoh =

(2.1)

/4rW

where the true velocity spectrum width W in ms-1 is a direct measure of the
The coherence time is a measure of the

relative motions of the scatterers.

maximum time between successive samples for coherent phase measurements.

Thus,
signal

for

short wavelength systems,

must be

sampled much more

microwave system.

such as

rapidly than

lidar, the backscattered

for a

longer wavelength

The autocorrelation function (defined later) can provide

a direct measure of the coherence time of a fluctuating target echo.

The second constraint on sampling is that for regularly spaced pulses, the
sampling frequency must be at least twice the maximum desired Doppler shift

frequency which reduces the occurrence of velocity aliasing.

In this case

the time between samples is governed by,

Ts < tNyq =

(2.2)

4V'

where tNyq is the minimum time between samples such that the desired
velocity V' is at least the so-called Nyquist velocity.
Since V' is
typically much larger than W, the latter constraint usually dominates the
sampling requirement.
+ 25 ms-1 , then T s

In fact, if we assume the desired maximum velocity is

V/100 or PRF = 100/ \ is a useful rule of thumb.

2.1.2 Noise
One of the goals of signal processing is to suppress the effects of noise.

The main source of noise in microwave radar is thermal in nature. This noise
power is simply

Pn = k Tsys Bsys

(2.3)

where k is Boltzman's constant (1.38 x 10-23 W/Hz/K), Tsys is the total

system temperature, and Bsys is the total system bandwidth including effects
of preselector filters, IF filters, and all other amplifiers in the signal
path

(Skolnik, 1970, 1980;

Paczowski and Whelehan, 1988).

With recent

improvements in low noise amplifiers (INA's), little room is left for

sensitivity improvement in conventional radar receivers. Presently, most
microwave radar systems are sufficiently sensitive that thermal radiation
from the earth makes a strong contribution to the receiver input at low
elevation angles.
ST/MST radar noise, because of its lower frequency, has a large contribution

from environmental,

cosmic and atmospheric

sources,

and

is not easily

quantified (Rottger and Larsen, Chap 21A). Therefore, antenna design and
the specific radar location and frequency band of operation define the
system noise.
4

Coherent lidar systems utilize detection schemes using optical heterodyning

onto cryogenic detectors with a local oscillator laser having relatively

high power mixing with the weak atmospheric return (Jelalian, 1980,
1981a,b).
Because of the small wavelengths, quantum effects dominate the
detection process associated with random photon arrivals impacting the LD
laser. This "shot noise" contribution is a fundamental physical limitation
of lidar sensitivity.
2.1.3 Scattering

Atmospheric radars respond to a variety of scattering targets-precipitation, cloud particles, aerosols, refractive index variations,
chaff, insects, birds, and ground targets.

Probert-Jones (1962) derived the

familiar radar equation most often used by radar meteorologists for

precipitation scattering. A detailed derivation can be found in Doviak and
Zrnic (1984), Battan (1973), or Atlas (1964). The received power is
Pt G2 02 cTr

1k12

Ze L

(2.4)

Pr=

1024 ln2 X 2 R 2
This equation includes L, the product of several small but significant loss
terms which are necessary to accurately estimate radar reflectivity factor,

e.g. receiver filter loss, propagation loss, blockage loss, and processing
bias. Zric (1978) defines the receiver filter loss as that portion of the
input signal frequencies not passed by the finite receiver bandwidth,
typically 1-3 dB. The other losses depend on atmospheric conditions and
antenna pointing and are enumerated in Skolnik (1980). This equation is
correct for Rayleigh scattering of a distributed target that completely
fills the resolution volume.
Non-Rayleigh targets or partially filled
resolution volumes will give received power estimates that cannot accurately

be related to precipitation rate.

Rottger and Larsen (Chap. 21A) and

Huffaker, et al. (1976, 1984) give similar received power expressions for

returns from refractive index variations and from lidar aerosol returns,
respectively.

required

The

dynamic

range

for

measuring the

backscattered power from

atmospheric targets is very large because:

The effective backscatter cross-sections of atmospheric scatterers span

1.

dynamic ranges of approximately 60 dB for precipitation but much larger

if cloud particle, "clear air", and ground target returns are included.

The R

2.

dependence of the received power for distributed targets spans

a range of 50 dB between 1 and 300 km.

Microwave

systems

should accommodate the

sum of these

two effects

and

typically can achieve a dynamic range of order 100 dB for power measurements
using either a log receiver,

linear receiver with AGC,

or some combination

of these.

2.1.4

Signal to noise ratio (SNR)

The ratio

of the received

signal

power

to the measured

noise power

is

defined to be the signal to noise ratio (SNR):

(2.5)

SNR = Pr/Pn

The SNR is extremely important for analyzing tradeoffs in signal processing.

It

is

a key term along with spectrum width and integration time in

analytic

evaluation of spectrum moment errors.

2.2

YPES OF AM[SHFERIC RAIDRS

A summary of the characteristics of the different types of electromagnetic

radars in use today for atmospheric research is discussed below.
assembles these differences.

Table 1

Table 1
Remote Sensor Sampling Comparison

Sensor

Pulse
Beamwidth Duration
(deg)
(~sec)

Wavelength Scatterers

Radar
S-band
Ka-band
mm-band

10cm
1 cm
1 mm

Precipitation
Precipitation
Cloud

ST/MST (profilers)
UHF
75 cm
Refractive
VHF
6 m
index

0.5-3
0.5-2
0.2-1

3-10
3-10

Sample
Rate
(Hz)

0.25-4
0.25-1
0.25-1

103
104
105

0.2-5
0.2-5

104->102
103->10

Lidar
IR
Optical

2.2.1

10 gmi
<1 im

Aerosols
Molecules

0.01
0.1-3
(near field) <1

107

Microwave radars

Microwave pulsed radars radiate fields with wavelengths between 20 cm and 1

mm and are commonly used as "weather radars"
et al.,

1979).

precipitation,

(Smith, et al., 1974; Doviak,

Depending on the wavelength, primary scattering is from

insects

cloud particles.

(Vaughan,1985), refractive index

fluctuations, and

Beams are typically circular in cross section with widths

0.5 to 3 degrees and the maximum usable ranges for storm observation is 200-

500 km. After a few kilometers range, the pulse volume is "pancake" shaped,
i.e., the pulse depth in
beam.

range is small compared to the distance across the

Attenuation effects

range

from

severe

for millimeter wavelength

systems, to nearly insignificant for 10 cm S-band systems.

Most centimeter wavelength microwave systems collect coherent samples over

several milliseconds.

Millimeter wavelength radars can make use of the

double pulsing technique

(Campbell and Strauch, 1976) to assure coherence

and to reduce an otherwise intolerable range ambiguity problem.

Doviak and

Zrnic (1984) and Strauch (1988) have shown that since only the second pulse
of a double pulsing radar may be contaminated by overlaid echo from the
first pulse of the pair, only random errors occur in the pulse to pulse
correlations.

These random errors may change very slowly with time so they

would appear to be systematic (bias) errors at a given time.

7

2.2.2

ST/ST radars or wind profilers

VHF and UHF radars which probe the mesosphere, stratosphere

and/or the

troposphere are called ST/MST radars and sometimes known as wind profilers,

observe radial winds at wavelengths between 30 cm and 6 m at near vertical

incidence (Gage and Balsley, 1978; Rottger, et al., 1978). Scattering is

from atmospheric refractive index fluctuations in space, analogous to Bragg
scattering.

Beamwidths may be as large as several degrees for tropospheric

sounding, but much narrower beams are used for longer stratospheric and
mesospheric ranges (Rottger and Larsen, Chap. 21A; Gage, Chap. 28A).
For a nominal 1 m wavelength, the atmospheric coherence time is typically

large fractions of a second. Consequently, the sampling rate to achieve

coherence is of order 10 Hz. Because of this and the typically weak clear
air returns, it is advantageous to perform time domain averaging of the
samples from pulse-to-pulse, e.g., at a given range, N successive complex

samples are averaged to yield a single complex pair.

This operation
effectively reduces the sampling frequency and the unambiguous velocity
interval by a factor of N, but the fundamental interval is usually so large
that this reduction is of little consequence. The main feature is that the
data rate is reduced by a factor of N while the SNR is improved N times
compared to the SNR of a data set sampled N times slower. The reduced data
rate permits computationally intensive processing such as FFT analysis so
that artifacts can be more easily eliminated. Doviak, et al. (1983) and
Smith (1987) describe the optimum number of samples to average given the
expected radial velocities and dispersions. Otherwise, the processing is
similar to microwave radars following conventional techniques. Rottger and
Larsen (Chap. 21A)
techniques.

describe the

details

of

ST/MST

radar processing

2.2.3

FM-CW radars

FM-CW

(frequency modulated continuous wave) radars have also played an

important role in boundary layer remote sensing (Richter, 1969; Chadwick, et

al.,

1976; Ligthart, et al., 1984).

Using an FM chirp waveform to obtain

range resolution of order 1 m and a continuous wave

8

(CW) to achieve

sensitivity 30 dB greater than a comparably chirped pulse system having the

same peak power, this system has given high resolution information on the
detailed structure of the boundary layer. Individual insects are apparently
discernable, and can be differentiated from atmospheric refractive index
variations. Strauch, et al. (1975) and Chadwick and Strauch (1979) have
demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally that Doppler, as well as
reflectivity, information can be extracted from a distributed target using
this pulse compression waveform at microwave wavelengths.
Any pulse
compression waveform with range-time sidelobes limits the radar's
performance in strong reflectivity gradients.

Alternatively, one can use

continuous, periodic, pseudo-random phase coding in a bistatic configuration

with similar advantages as Woodman (1980b) describes for the Arecibo S-band

planetary radar.
2.2.4 Mobile radars
Airborne and spaceborne radars are an important class of atmospheric remote
sensors covered by Hildebrand and Moore (Chap. 22A). Special problems are
evident when a moving platform supports the remote sensor. Many of the
signal processing problems have well known solutions but have not been field

tested.

The basic processing algorithms are similar to those employed with

ground based sensors, but special processing techniques must be employed to

suppress moving ground clutter and to obtain adequate resolution and

sensitivity from spaceborne instruments.
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) techniques can be used only if the platform
moves rapidly so that atmospheric targets remain coherent during a "dwell
time", thereby giving a synthetic aperture yielding the desired along-track
resolution. SAR mapping of precipitation is possible from space vehicles
because of the great distance traversed by the antenna during the coherency

time of the targets (Atlas and Moore, 1987). Quantitative measurements of

precipitation from space involve a broad range of signal processing problems
to achieve both maximum sensitivity and a sufficiently large number of
independent samples. Obtaining reliable average echo power from individual
storm cells while covering a large cross-track swath in the short times
available to traverse a typical along-track beam width requires extremely
9

Research concerning atmospheric target measurements

high processing rates.

is just beginning in this important field (Li, et al., 1987).

Lidar

2.2.5

or

Optical

infrared

radars,

cammonly

known

as

lidars,

scatter

atmospheric aerosols at wavelengths between 10 and 0.3 microns

1974-75; Huffaker,

et al.,

1976; Jelalian, 1977; Bilbro, et al.,

dominates

scattering

1984 and

are the highest.

of the atmosphere where aerosol concentrations

Molecular

(Huffaker,

This makes them most useful in the lower

1986; and McCaul, et al., 1986).

regions

from

at

the

shorter

Lidar

is

most useful

in

wavelengths.

severely attenuated by cloud and precipitation so it

is

"clear air" applications (Lawrence, et al., 1972; McWhirter and Pike, 1978).

Lidar requires a receiving aperture several thousand wavelengths in diameter

to

achieve

atmospheric
antenna

the

necessary

lidars,

gain

both ground

(or telescope)

and

Consequently,

sensitivity.

based and airborne,

"near field" range.

many

operate within the

A distinct advantage of this

near field operation is the collimation of the optical energy into the "near
field tube" with minimal "sidelobe" radiation.
beamwidths are measured in milliradians.

When in the far field, the

Maximum ranges are a few tens of

kilometers, and pulse volumes are usually elongated.

The expected Doppler shifts and coherence times require sampling at rates of
10 -

100 MHz.

This means that all

the information necessary for complete

spectral processing is acquired from a single pulse.

This makes lidar, by

its very nature, a "fast scanning" atmospheric remote sensor.

Current laser

duty cycle constraints limit PRF's to about 100 Hz, which produces data
rates that can easily be processed and recorded (Hardesty, et al.,

1988;

Alldritt, et al., 1978).

An important characteristic of acquiring the data in

a single pulse is

the

degraded range resolution that results when the pulse propagates outward
during the data collection interval.

During the sampling interval, "new"

particles are appearing at the leading edge of the illuminated volume, while

"old" particles are disappearing at the trailing edge.

10

This creates an

additional contribution to the spectrum width similar to that caused by

antenna scanning for microwave radars.

2.2.6

Acoustic sounders

Acoustic radars, also known as echosondes, sodars, or acdars, are important

sensors

for

the

boundary

layer

(Little,

1969).

longitudinal in nature and propagate at about 340 ms

Acoustic
-1

waves

are

Scattering is from

temperature and velocity fluctuations caused by turbulent motion in the

atmosphere.

The processing techniques, while at audio frequencies,

are

similar to those employed by lidar since spectral data representative of the

scattering medium are obtained from a single pulse rather than pulse-topulse sampling.
shifts,
source

Because of the slow propagation speed and small Doppler

sampling the echoes obtained

is

avoided.

possible.

Thus,

complex

from a real

(single channel)

(dual channel)

data

data

processing

is

Moreover, the real echoes are sampled at a rate substantially less

than the carrier frequency of the sodar so that zero Doppler shift is offset
from

zero

frequency.

In

this

manner unambiguous

estimates can be made.

11

and

signed

velocity

DOPLER PE

3.

SPBCRlM MMENT ErAMHATICN

It is well established that the first three moments of the Doppler power
spectral density or the "power spectrum" (incorrectly termed the "Doppler
spectrum" in the community) are directly related to the desired atmospheric
base parameters:

radar reflectivity, radial velocity, and velocity spectrum

width (Rogers and Chimera, 1960; Groginsky, 1966).

Before we discuss the

power spectrum and moment estimation, we shall find it useful to define the
input waveform.

Since

the return

scattering

from

refractive index

from
a

individual

range cells

typically

is generated by

large number of randomly distributed particles and/or

inhomogeneities, the received signal process is

central

limit

process

(Parzen, 1957;

theorem)

a very

good

Swerling,

approximation to a

1960;

Mitchell,

(by the

Gaussian

random

Thus,

signal

1976).

processing techniques should be assessed in the context of a statistical

estimation theory framework wherein one seeks to make the best estimate of
the ensemble parameters given a particular sample function
Davenport and Root, 1958).

(Wiener, 1949;

This statistical estimation framework becomes of

particular importance when one wishes to scan a phenomenon quickly since the
random process nature of

the weather signal will necessitate

a certain

amount of averaging if the desired accuracies are to be achieved.

single

stationary point target at range R

reproduces

the transmitted

waveform after it has been filtered by the receiver

z(t,R) = A exp[j2rf(t-2R/c)

where

function

is

the complex voltage

that

depends

on

the

W(t-2t-2R/c)

amplitude and W(t)is

transmit

pulse

length

(3.1)

a range weighting
and

the

receiver

bandwidth (Doviak and Zrnic, 1984).

Actual targets in

the atmosphere are composed of many individual scatterers,

distributed over range, radar cross section, and velocity.

13

The received

waveform for a particular distributed target then is a sample function of

the random process which produces the atmospheric return.

We desire to

estimate the mean characteristics of the random target over an ensemble of

sample functions. The vector sum of the return complex voltage from the
individual scatterers is
z(t,R) = Z Ai exp[j2fi(t-2Ri/c)] W(t-t2Ri/c)
i

(3.2)

where the subscript i represents the individual particle. Each particle has
a complex voltage return (Ai), a Doppler shifted frequency (fi), and a range
(Ri). At any given sampling instant for the kth pulse the received waveform
can be represented in the complex signal plane by a vector (or "phasor")

which has an instantaneous amplitude or voltage IVk(R) and phase Ek(R)

determined by the instantaneous vector sum of the individual scatterers.
The complex signal is then
Zk(R) =

Ik(R) + j Qk(R)

(3.3)

where Ik(R)=IVk(R) Icos ek(R) is the in-phase and Qk(R)=|Vk(R) Isin Ek(R) is
the quadrature phase component (Rader, 1984).

that

These expressions illustrate

(for a specific received polarization)

measurable, the complex amplitude and phase.

only

two quantities are

All other quantities are

derived from these based on physical models.

3.1

GENERAL FEURES OF THE DOFPPER POWER SECRM

The concept of the Doppler power spectrum is fundamental in radar signal

processing (Haykin, 1985b). A typical power spectrum, shown in Figure 3.1,
is a plot of the returned power as a function of the Doppler shifted
frequency components in the target resolution volume.
The usual sign
convention (taken from spherical coordinates) is that a positive Doppler
velocity corresponds to a velocity away from the radar; the rate of change
in range is positive.
This corresponds to a negative Doppler frequency
shift. The velocity limits Vmax are determined by the Nyquist constraint
that two samples per wavelength or period are required to unambiguously
measure a frequency (Whittaker, 1915; Nyquist, 1928; Shannon, 1949). For a
14

0
-10

dB -20
-30
-40
-0.5 -0.4 -0.3

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

VELO)CITY/2 Vmax

Fig 3.1

Doppler power spectrum (128 point periodogram) of typical weather

echo in white noise.
Estimated parameters are velocity
0.4
Vmax, velocity spectrum width ~ .04 Vax, and SNR ~ 10 dB.

15

uniform pulse repetition time T s

"Nyquist velocity" is

(equally spaced samples)

Vmax = \/4Ts

the so called

(3.4)

The interval [-Vmax, +Vma] is called the "unambiguous velocity interval" or

commonly the "Nyquist velocity interval" and all possible velocities are
measured within this interval. The reality of sampling theory dictates that
sampled Doppler spectra exist on a circular frequency domain rather than a
frequency line extending both directions from zero (Gold and Rader, 1969).
Thus, as a target velocity increases beyond Vmax, it aliases or "folds" onto

the negative velocity region of the Nyquist velocity interval (Passarelli,

et al., 1984).
The signal power spectrum rests on a platform of "white noise", so called
because the noise power spectral density is independent of frequency. White
noise is caused by several factors including thermal noise from the
receiver, phase noise from the transmitter/receiver system, artifacts from
the spectrum estimation algorithm, artifacts from receiver non-linearities,
and quantization noise from the A/D converters.
It is convenient to approximate the signal portion of the power spectrum
with a Gaussian shape having some mean velocity and width. The area under
the signal portion of the spectrum, not including the contribution of white
noise, is the returned power. Depending on the distribution of velocities
in the pulse volume and the scattering mechanism, asymmetric spectra and/or
multi-modal spectra may occur. Second trip echoes are a common cause of
bimodal spectra in klystron systems. Janssen and Van der Spek (1985) found
that only about 75%

of observed precipitation spectra had the assumed

Gaussian shape.

For ST/MST radars the spectrum is often assumed to be Gaussian, but spectra

measured at near vertical antenna beam directions (zenith angles less than
about 10) very regularly show one or more strong spectral spikes superposed
on a Gaussian shaped base. The spikes result from a corresponding number of
16

quasi-horizontal laminar refractive index structures producing partial

reflections while the Gaussian floor results from scattering by turbulent
refractive index structures. Moreover, the aspect sensitivity due to the
quasi-horizontal laminar structures may produce strongly asymmetric mean
power spectra if several single power spectra are averaged for oblique
antenna beam directions.
The width of the velocity spectrum has a number of contributions including

wind shear, turbulence, particle fallspeed dispersion, antenna rotation

(Nathanson, 1969) and, in the case of lidar, range propagation of the pulse
during sarpling. It is difficult to separate instrumental effects from the
desired signal contributions.
The goal of signal processing is to deduce the characteristics of the signal

portion of the spectrum.

This means that the other contributions from
clutter, noise, and artifacts must be either minimized or removed by the
various steps of processing.

There are two basic approaches:

frequency

domain processing using the power spectrum, and time domain processing using

the

autocorrelation

function.

Each

approach

has

its

advantages

and

disadvantages but the essential information available from each is identical

since the power spectrum of the sampled signal and its autocorrelation
function comprise a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) pair, (Oppenheim &
Schafer, 1975; Tretter, 1976):
N-1

S(nfo) = Z R(mTs) exp [-j2mnm/N]

m=0
R(miTs) = N- 1

(3.5a)

N-l
Z S(nfo) exp [+j27rmn/N]

(3.5b)

n=0
where S(nfo) is the Doppler spectrum in multiples of the fundamental
frequency shift fo=l/NTs and R(rTs) is the autocorrelation function in
multiples of the sample time Ts . This is the discrete version of the
celebrated Wiener-Khinchine theorem (Wiener, 1930; Khinchine, 1934).

The

information content is identical in the two approaches.

difference between time and frequency domain processing

the

17

The primary
is that

information concerning the lower spectral moments is distributed over

several frequencies of the power spectrum, while it is concentrated in the
small lags of the autocorrelation function.
It is important to realize that sampling theory dictates that both S(nfo)
and R(mrs) be periodic. That is, the spectrum repeats at multiples of the
sampling frequency and the correlation function repeats at multiples of N
times the sampling period (NTS). When highly coherent spectral components
(e.g. clutter) are present, the correlation usually will not decay to zero
Thus, the periodicity requirement of R(mTs) will
produce a biased spectrum estimate. Care must be exercised in these cases.
within the N/2 samples.

3.2

FREQUENCY DOMAIN SPECTRAL MEMENT ESTIMATION

Estimating the Doppler power spectrum and its moments directly are
straightforward techniques (Haykin and Cadzow, 1982). However, some basic
questions must be answered first. We implicitly assume a data model for
weather and clutter spectra when we choose a spectrum estimation technique.
A specific data model such as a sum of sinusoids or white noise passed
through a narrowband filter is best analyzed by a spectrum analysis
technique compatible with that data model. Robinson (1982) emphasizes this
Marple (1987)
point in his historical review of spectrum estimation.
stresses the importance of using an appropriate model fitting analysis and
gives a very well organized discussion of classical and modern spectral
estimates using digital techniques.
3.2.1 Fast Fburier transform techniques
The Doppler power spectrum may be estimated from the Discrete Fourier
Transform (DFT) of the complex signal. The DFT decomposes the observed data
into a sum of sinusoids having amplitude and phase that will exactly
It is easy to show that these N discrete
reproduce the observed data.
components are adequate to reconstruct the entire continuous spectrum so
long as the complex data samples {zk} are taken at a rate equal to or
greater than the bandwidth of the signal. The advantage of measuring the
full Doppler spectrum is that spectral impurities such as ground clutter,

18

bi-modal

spectra

or artifacts

can be

suppressed by

intuitive

(if non-

optimal) algorithms.

The so called "periodogram", a frequently used estimator in weather radar as

well as many other fields, is an N point spectrum estimator in which the
standard deviation of each spectral value equals its mean value.
one averages several

Usually

spectra from a divided time series or smooths over

several points in the periodogram to improve the accuracy.

The periodogram

is defined as the squared magnitude of the transformed data sequence {Zk}

(Blackman and Tukey, 1958; Cooley and Tukey, 1965; Oppenheim and Schafer,
1975),
N-1
P(f) = N- 1 Z hkzk exp [-j27fk]1 2
k=-O
1

where

the """ denotes

an estimate.

(3.6)

The hk term is the "window" which

modifies the waveform being transformed.

In general,

window functions have a maximum value centered on the time

series and are tapered near zero at the ends.

This tapering

spectrum

energy

smearing,

"leakage"

of

spectral

reduces the

introduced

discontinuity imposed by sampling when the end points are joined.

by

Windowing

also effectively reduces the number of points in the time series.

simplest

window

is

hk =

(or no windowing).

the

The

For this window, the

periodogram of a single point target has the first side lobe only 13 dB down
from the peak.

This is not a problem for estimating the mean and variance

of the designed signal, but if strong clutter is present, then the sidelobe

power from the clutter that leaks throughout the Nyquist interval can mask
weaker weather echoes.
windows.
description

Harris

Table 2 shows characteristics

(1978)

of window

and Marple

functions.

(1987) both

In general,

of several

give

the

19

extraordinary

lower the

offered by a window, the broader its main lobe response.

degrades the spectral moment estimates.

an

common

sidelobes

This broadening

Table 2
Characteristics of time series data windows (Marple, 1987).

Window
Name
Rectangle
Triangle
Hann
Hamming
Gaussian
Equiripple

Highest
Sidelobe
-13.3
-26.5
-31.5
-43
-42
-50

Sidelobe
Decay Rate

dB
dB
dB
dB
dB
dB

-6
-12
-18
-6
-6
0

The windowed periodogram P(f)

Nyquist

interval.

dB/octave
dB/octave
dB/octave
dB/octave
dB/octave
dB/octave

Equivalent
Bandwidth
(Bins)
1.00
1.33
1.50
1.36
1.39
1.39

1/2 Power
Bandwidth
(Bins)
0.89
1.28
1.44
1.30
1.33
1.33

can be evaluated at any frequency f in the

The Fast Fourier Transform

(FFT) is simply a highly

efficient technique for evaluating the DFT at N equally spaced discrete

frequencies

(Welch, 1967).

Although the FFT algorithm is attributed to

Cooley and Tukey (1965), a recent historical investigation into the history
of the Fast Fourier Transform by Heideman, et al.

(1984) attributes an

algorithm very similar to the FFT for computation of the coefficients of a

finite Fourier series to Gauss, the German mathematician.

Apparently the

first implementation of the FFT on a weather radar was in December 1970 at

the CHILL radar (Mueller and Silha, 1978).

3.2.2

Maximum entrpy techniques

The aforementioned Fourier transform techniques have been understood since

the time of Fourier and Gauss and are well documented by Jenkins and Watts
(1968).

Only recently have techniques based on covariance estimates and

probabilistic concepts been explored.

Kay and Marple

(1981) and Childers

(1978) have termed these parametric techniques "modern spectrum analysis".

Marple (1987) points out that maximum entropy, maximum likelihood and other
techniques are "modern" in the sense that short data

sequences produce

spectral resolutions better than the inverse duration of the data sequence,
which is characteristic of classical spectrum estimators.
digital

Furthermore, fast

algorithms have been developed which allow computing hardware to

perform the computations

in the required time frames.

20

This interest in

alternative

spectrum estimators

can be explained by categorizing expected

performance improvements as increased resolution or increased detectability.

Both Jaynes (1982) and Makhoul (1986) attempt to clarify some confusion and
misleading notions related to the maximum entropy techniques.

Maximum

entropy

(ME) spectrum

analysis

estimates

parametric techniques to define the spectrum.

the

spectrum

using

The parameters are typically

derived from the data samples or some estimated autocorrelation sequence.

The

ME

technique

was

developed

by J.P.

Burg

(1967, 1968,

1975)

as

geophysical prospecting technique for high resolution measurement of sonic

wave reflections and velocities.
spectrum

model

can

approximate

increasing its order L.

Makhoul
any

(1975) shows that the all pole ME

spectrum

arbitrarily

closely

by

He shows that the ME spectra minimizes the log

ratio of the estimated spectrum to the true spectrum integrated over the
Nyquist

interval.

The MST radar community

(Klostermeyer,

1986)

and the

lidar community (Keeler and Lee, 1978) have used the maximum entropy method
for characterizing atmospheric targets.
Sweezy (1978) and Mahapatra and
Zrnic

(1983) have computed maximum entropy spectrum estimates on simulated

weather radar data and compared them with Fourier transform and pulse pair
estimators.

Haykin, et al. (1982) describe how maximum entropy techniques

can be applied to Doppler processing of radar "clutter"

including weather

and birds for aviation hazard identification.

Atmospheric echoes, whether from precipitation, aerosols, or turbulence, can

be modeled by "autoregressive" (AR) techniques as narrow band filtered
noise.

These AR and the standard Fourier technique appear to represent the

essential

spectral

features

well

although

little

quantitative work

available for comparison in the atmospheric echo application.

(1971) and Ulrych and Bishop

is

Van den Bos

(1975) show that maximum entropy spectrum

analysis is equivalent to least squares fitting of a discrete time all pole

model to the observed data.

As noise is added to the observations the

autoregressive moving average

(ARMA) model

1980; Marple, 1987).

21

is more

appropriate

(Cadzow,

The justification for studying maximum entropy spectra is its ability to

estimate complete spectra from the first few lags of the autocorrelation
function rather than from all the autocorrelation lags that are required by
the Fourier transform technique (Radoski, et al., 1975). Since only the
first few autocorrelation values are known with any confidence, this
property may be critically important when the sampled data sets are very
short. Baggeroer (1976) computes confidence limits for ME spectra which are
applicable to atmospheric echoes.
The "order" of the maximum entropy spectra defines the number of lags, or
equivalently the number of poles in the filter through which white noise is
passed in modeling the data.

A larger order allows non-Gaussian spectral

detail to be more accurately represented, e.g. a weak atmospheric echo in

the presence of a much stronger ground clutter. However, a larger order
requires a longer data sample to obtain accurate estimates.
The basic technique uses the sampled input data to compute R(0), R(1),...

R(L) for the Lth order estimator. Additional lags are realized by requiring
that the entropy (in an information theoretic sense) of the probability
density function having the extended autocorrelation function be maximized.
This extended autocorrelation function allows computation of coefficients
for a whitening or linear prediction filter.

The ME spectrum is computed

from these filter coefficients which are defined by the matrix equation
A = R-1 P

(3.7)

where A is the filter coefficient vector, R is the autocorrelation matrix

The
and P is the autocorrelation vector (Ulrych and Bishop, 1975).
coefficient estimates can be rapidly computed using the Levinson algorithm
(Makhoul, 1975; Anderson, 1978).
This filter removes the predictable components from the input data and the
optimum filter of order L minimizes the prediction error. The Lth order ME
spectrum estimate can then be computed

22

^2 (L)

SME (f)

(3.8)
L

I1 -e

am exp[-j2rfm] 12

m=l
where am are the elements of A and ao2(L)
(1967)

gives

the

"forward-backward"

is

final prediction error.

technique

of

estimating

the

Burg
linear

prediction coefficients directly from the data which frequently permits more
detail to be shown in
Kesler

(1976)

Friedlander

give

(1982)

the spectrum.
the

complex

Smylie,

and Makhoul

form

(1977)

of

et al.
the

describe

ME

(1973)

and Haykin and

spectrum

estimator.

lattice structures for ME

spectrum estimates which are computationally more efficient and identical to

Burg's method.

Papoulis

(1981) attempts to interrelate the various aspects

of maximum entropy and spectrum estimation in his mathematical review paper.

Marple

(1987)

presents a

more readable

exposition.

Cadzow

(1980,

1982)

extends the ME concept to rational models.

Keeler and Lee (1978) and Mahapatra and Zrnic

(1983) have shown that the

pulse pair frequency estimator is identically the mean (or the peak, in this
special case) of the first order maximum entropy spectrum.

The atmospheric

remote sensing community has been using the simplest form of ME for almost
two decades!
radars,

Its relevance to accurate parameter estimation for weather

ST/MST profilers

and

lidar

signals

is an

active research

area

(Haykin, 1982).

3.2.3

Maximum likelihood techniques

Maximum likelihood (ML)

estimation is

a statistical concept that gives the

most likely outcome or minimum variance estimate of an experiment based on a

set

of

known probabilities.

"efficient",
variance.

i.e.

there

ML estimates

of

is no other unbiased

spectral

parameters

estimator having

are

lower

It is well suited for estimating parameters of a spectrum whose

shape is known or assumed when neither a priori knowledge nor a valid cost

function associated with moment estimator error is known (Van Trees, 1968).
Zrnic (1979a) uses ML techniques to derive the minimum variance (Cramer-Rao)
23

bounds of spectral moment estimators for application to atmospheric radar

data. He compares present estimators to these bounds and interprets Levin's
(1965) results in a modern framework.

Moreover, he shows that the pulse

pair estimator is ML for a Markov process.

In general closed form solutions for ML estimates of spectrum moments are

quite complicated and difficult to compute. The optimum (ML) processor

depends on the underlying signal statistics which in turn depend on the
spectrum

shape

and SNR.

Shirakawa

and Zrnic

(1983) evaluate

the ML

estimator for sinusoids in noise and find a slight improvement over the
pulse pair estimator at low SNR's.

Novak and Lindgren (1982) derive the

exact ML mean velocity estimator for Gaussian shaped spectra using more than

one autocorrelation lag. Their technique is similar to Lee and Lee's (1980)
poly pulse pair velocity estimator.

Miller and Rochwarger (1972) show that

for independent pairs, the pulse pair estimator of mean frequency is ML for

an arbitrarily shaped spectrum so long as the normalized width is small.

Sato and Woodman

(1982) use a least square

fit algorithm to estimate

spectral parameters, including noise and clutter parameters, by assuming

prior knowledge of the spectral shapes. Woodman (1985) shows that this
technique is a ML estimator of the spectral characteristics.
It is
gratifying that the simple pulse pair estimators approach the minimum
variance bound over a wide range of SNR's.

If the spectrum shape is completely unknown, the ML spectrum gives the most
probable estimate which concentrates the spectral energy at the input signal

frequencies while minimizing other spectral energy in a statistically

optimum sense (Capon, 1969; Lacoss, 1971). The statistical rationale for
using ML estimation is that the ML spectrum estimate provides a minimum
variance, unbiased estimate of the power at a given frequency. Burg (1972)
has shown that in the mean the Lth order ML spectrum is just the following
combination of ME spectra up to order L:

[SML(f) -

L
= L1 Z [SME,m(f)m=l

24

(3.9)

Thus, the mean ML spectrum is a smoothed version of mean ME spectra.

It has

many of the same properties as ME spectra but the details are obscured by
combining all order ME spectra.

There have been theoretical studies of ML

spectra but little application to atmospheric data.

Klostermeyer (1986) has

computed ML spectra for VHF radar data.

3.2.4

Classical spectral moment computation

The spectrum moments can be directly related to the reflectivity, velocity,

and dispersion parameters desired

for further analysis.

Computing these

moments has historically been performed using classical moment calculations

based

on techniques

from probability theory when considering the power

spectrum as a density function of frequency or velocity components of the

desired

signal

(Denenberg, 1971,

"sampling theorem"

1976).

imposes certain

For

sampled data systems

requirements on moment

the

and transform

computations that cannot be ignored -- namely replication in the frequency

domain and circular convolution (Oppenheim and Schafer, 1975).

Let the power spectrum of the received signal be denoted by S(f).

Then the

classical spectral moments are given by

Mn =

The zeroth moment (MO)

fn S(f)df .

(3.10)

is the area under S(f) and represents total signal

clutter, and noise power.

Of course, we are usually interested only in the

signal power, so the clutter and noise powers must be estimated and removed.
Noise

power

is

generally

easy

to

remove,

but

clutter

removal

causes

difficulties to the parameter estimation process.

The classical normalized first moment represents mean velocity and is given
by the linear weighting of S(f) over the Nyquist interval

fc =

f S(f)df / Mo

V = (X/2) fc

(3.11a)
(3.1Ib)

25

Note that white noise biases the velocity towards zero and for a pure noise
spectrum the mean velocity is identically zero.

Various techniques have

been described for mitigating this bias, most of them requiring manipulation
of the power spectra.
the

noise

spectral

Thresholding the spectrum points with some value near

density

is

but

common,

some

sensitivity

is

lost

(Hildebrand and Sekhon, 1974; Sirmans and Bumgarner, 1975a; Klostermeyer,

1986).

The "spectral balancing technique" rotates S(f) until the signal spectrum is
near

zero

velocity.

so that

the signal

and the

noise share

the same

zero mean

The amount of rotation represents the mean velocity of the signal

component and removes errors due to aliased spectra.

The same effect is

obtained by computing the offset first moment

(3.12)

(f-fc) S(f)df = 0

where fc is varied to obtain equality.

The

normalized

second central moment represents the velocity dispersion

within the pulse resolution volume.

Shear, turbulence and precipitation

motion (fallspeed oscillations, etc.) contribute to a distribution of radial

velocities

(Nathanson and

Reilly,

1968).

contribution

from antenna

scanning during the finite dwell time may also be significant

1969).

(Nathanson,

The velocity dispersion (width) is the square root of the second

central moment of the spectrum estimate:

af2 = I

(f-fc)2 S(f)df / M0
W = (>/2) of .

(3.13a)
(3.13b)

Spectrum estimation algorithms are fairly time consuming to invoke, and once
the frequency domain is entered, there is still substantial computation to
accurately extract the meteorological moments.

The main reason for entering

the frequency domain lies in the ability to more easily filter spectral
26

artifacts
unimodal

or

identify multi-modal

and generally free

from

spectra.

In cases where spectra

artifacts,

more efficient time domain

are

processing is typically used.

3.3

TIME DIXMAIN SPECTRAL MO'ENT ESTIMATIC

The basis for time domain moment estimation is the transform relationship of
the autocorrelation function of the complex signal to the power spectrum.

An estimate of the autocorrelation can be easily calculated from the complex

input time series {Zk),

R(m) = (N-m)

N-m-1
2 Zk* Zk+m
k=0

(3.14)

where m is the lag between the two data series.

usually

For uncontaminated spectra,

only two or three lags are necessary to obtain the moments of

interest.

This represents a substantial savings in computation over the

spectrum domain approach.

The general relationship between the complex

autocorrelation function and the nth classical spectral moment is

Mn =

where

R[n] (0)

is

the

evaluated at lag = 0

nth

R[n](0)/(j2w)n

derivative

(Papoulis, 1962;

of

(3.15)

the

Bracewell,

autocorrelation
1965).

function

The first three

spectral moments are used to estimate the reflectivity, radial velocity, and
velocity dispersion or width respectively (Miller, 1970; Miller, 1972).

3.3.1

Gecmetric interpretatins

The complex autocorrelation

function, which is the basis for time domain

moment estimation, is often depicted as its real and imaginary components,

but

an

alternative

dimensional

representation

allows

better

understanding of the covariance, or pulse pair, mean frequency estimator.

Consider the complex R(m) to be a 3D helix that is wide at the center and

tapered toward zero radius at the ends having a Gaussian shaped envelope.

27

Figure

shows a drawing of this continuous autocorrelation helix.

3.2

sampled autocorrelation helix will consist of points on this helix spaced at

the PRT.

Note that zero lag, R(0), is

at the center and has no imaginary

The radius at lag 0 represents the signal power and the real

component.

delta function

at lag 0

represents the noise power.

The width of the

Gaussian envelope of the helix represents the inverse velocity spectrum

width

The rotation rate of the helix defines the mean

or dispersion.

velocity of the signal.

For a given spacing of autocorrelation function

samples the angular rotation between a pair of samples is a measure of mean

velocity.
velocity

the angle of the complex estimate R(1) gives the mean

Thus,

of the received signal

expressed as a fraction of the Nyquist

interval which is the "pulse pair estimator" used almost universally for
mean velocity in weather radar and lidar processors.

useful

geometric

spectral moments and the autocorrelation function can be found in

and Siggia (1983).

classical

interpretation of the relationship between

Passarelli

This interpretation illustrates many of the properties

of pulse pair estimators.

3.3.2

"Pulse pair" estimators

The advent of the so-called pulse pair, double pulse, or complex covariance
technique (Rummler,
1972;

1968a; Woodman and Hagfors, 1969; Miller and Rochwarger,

and Groginsky, 1973;

Berger

Woodman

and Guillen,

1974)

for mean

velocity estimation was revolutionary since the algorithm arose at about the

same time that it could be implemented in hardware for a significant number

of range bins.
of hardware
However,

Lhermitte (1972) and Groginsky (1972) reported the first use

signal

processors

covariance processing

and weather
for velocity

radars using this technique.

measurements

apparently was

first used in March of 1968 for ionospheric velocity measurements

and Hagfors, 1969).

(Woodman

Woodman and Guillen (1974) also reported covariance

based velocity measurements in the mesosphere at the Jicamarca MST radar in

1970.

This algorithm development in the MST community was independent of

Rummler's work.

The pulse pair algorithm led to an exciting growth in the

use of Doppler radar by the scientific community (Groginsky,

Ihennitte,

1972; Sirmans,

1975; Ihermitte and Serafin, 1984).

28

et al.,

1972;

Real axis
x

R(O)
Pn
PS

R(I)
Imaginary
axis

lag
m

v1
J

Fig 3.2

Three dimensional representation of the complex

function as a helix.
Radius of helix Rs(O) is
total signal power, Ps; rotation rate of helix is
velocity, V; width of envelope! is
inversely
velocity spectrum width, W.
Delta function Rn(0)
power.

29

autocorrelation
proportional to
proportional to
proportional to
represents noise

Other time domain algorithms such as the "vector phase change" (Hyde and
Perry, 1958) and the "scalar phase change" (Sirmans and Doviak, 1973) are
closely related
inferior.

to the pulse pair

Sirmans and Bumgarner

estimator, but
(1975b)

their performance

capare these

and

is

other mean

frequency estimators.

It is well known that the first few lags of the autocorrelation function are
sufficient to deduce spectrum parameters of interest.
1984),

Bracewell

(1965),

Woodman and Guillen

Papoulis

(1965 and

(1974), and Passarelli and

Siggia (1983) show that the autocorrelation function can be represented by a

Taylor series

expansion

in terms of the central moments of the Doppler

spectrum with the low order moments being the leading terms.

In other

words, the first few lags of the autocorrelation function contain the moment
information of interest.

For an arbitrary spectrum, these expansions have

the form

R(mits) = A(mrTs) exp[-j0(mrs)] .

(3.16)

The even function A(mrTs) is determined primarily by the even central moments
(e.g.,

power, variance

and kurtosis),

while the odd

function 0(mTs)

is

determined primarily by the mean velocity and the odd central moments (e.g.,
skewness).

Estimators

can be generated

for any moment, provided that a

number of autocorrelation lags are measured.

the magnitude for lag zero.

Therefore,

sufficient

White noise power Pn biases

the total received power must be

corrected for noise,

Pr = R(0) - Pn

(3.17)

The pulse pair mean velocity estimator is not biased by white noise and is
obtained by taking the argument of the first

V = (

autocorrelation lag,

1
/2) (2Ts)tan[Im R(T)/Re R(Ts)] .

30

(3.18)

The pulse pair spectrum width is given by

W = (X/2) (2fTs)-

[1 - p(Ts) (1 + SNR-1)]

(3.19)

where p(Ts) =|R(Ts) |/R(O) is the normalized first lag and the noise power
must be determined independently.
3.3.3

Circular spectral rmment computation for sampled data

Sampled data systems utilize the complex plane and z-transform theory to
formally express the relationships between the time and frequency domains
(Oppenheim and Schafer, 1975). For example, the DFT of the autocorrelation
function is formally the z-transform of the sampled autocorrelation function

evaluated on the unit circle in the z plane, i.e. |z|=1 or z = exp[-j27f]:

S(f) =

N-1
z R(mTs) z-m
m=O
Iz=exp [-j 27rf]

The unit circle on the complex z plane is important

(3.20)

in understanding

concepts of sampled or discrete data systems, specifically concepts of

digital signal processing. Figure 3.3 shows the z plane and the frequencies
associated with various points on the unit circle. Zero frequency, where
ground clutter usually appears, corresponds to z=l and the Nyquist frequency

(where velocity spectra alias into the next Nyquist velocity interval)
corresponds to z=-l. Thus, the z plane representation of spectral space
allows an immediate and simple geometric interpretation of velocity aliasing

and the velocity ambiguity arising from sampling too slowly. Analysis and
synthesis of digital filters requires heavy application of z transform
theory, thus easily allowing visualizing the effect of various types of
ground clutter filters, for example.
It is natural to compute spectral moments on the unit circle rather than
along the frequency line in the Nyquist velocity interval. The zeroth
moment or total receiver power, is still that area under the spectrum

31

Imag

f = (2Ts)-'

Real
I0

f = -(4Ts )-I

Fig 3.3

Z plane

Periodogram power spectrum plotted on unit circle in the z-plane.

Note velocity aliasing point, the Nyquist velocity, at z=-l.

32

whether on a line or on a circle.

However, higher order moments can be

different for the two cases (Passarelli, et al., 1984).

A simple geometric derivation shows that the first circular moment estimate,
fc, of the estimated spectrum, S(f),

is the normalized frequency at which

the center of mass on the circle is located,

S (27m/N) sin(27m/N)
fc = (27)-

tan-1

(3.21)
Z S(27m/N) cos(2nm/N)

where the summations run over 0 to N-l.

Trigonometric manipulation converts

this equation to
N-1
Z S(27m/N) sin[27(n/N - fc)] = 0
n=0
Thus, fc is the sinusoidal weighted mean of S(f)

(3.22)

(Zrnic, 1979a).

Further,

we see that the numerator and denominator of (3.21) are the imaginary and
real parts of R(mrTs) and that the circular first moment is identically the
pulse pair frequency or velocity estimator.

Two points are clear from this discussion: 1) white noise does not bias the
pulse

pair

particular

frequency

estimate

frequencies

on

the

because

the

circle,

and

noise
2)

does

not

symmetric

weight

spectra

any
have

identical first moments using either the classical (linear weighting) or the
circular

(sinusoidal weighting) computations.

Asymmetric spectra produce

different first moment estimators but there are no compelling reasons to

prefer linear weighting over the more common sinusoidal weighting (the pulse
pair estimator).

Indeed,

for sampled data

systems the circular moment

computation is more natural than classical moment computation.

3.3.4

Pbly pulse pair techniques

If we accept the premise that knowing lags of the autocorrelation function

past the first allows a processor to extract additional information about
the

received

signal,

then one should expect

to reduce the variance of

velocity estimates by using, not only R(1), but R(2), R(3), etc.
33

The

Classical:

2(f - f,,i) S(f)= o

2Ts

freq -

2Ts

Circular:
Zsin[27r (f

fci)]S(f)
0
-t~~~~~i,,]scr, o~~~~~~~~~~~~

fcir

2T5

Fig 3.4

Comparison of classical

and circular

(pulse pair)

first moment

estimators.
Classical estimate is determined by linear weighting
of spectrum estimate and circular estimate,
by sinusoidal
weighting.

34

variance reduction can be realized only if the received signal is coherent

over the additional lags.
Lee (1978) proposed the "poly pulse pair"
algorithm for lidar signal processing. Velocity estimates can be found from
a weighted average of the estimate given at each lag, where the smaller lags

are given higher weighting since the correlations are higher. Poly pulse
pair velocity estimates (using a few lags) produce lower variance estimates
than the pulse pair estimates when the spectrum width of the signal is only
a few percent of the sampling frequency (Lee and Lee, 1980).
Strauch, et al. (1977) evaluated poly pulse pair for 3 cm radar processing.
They concluded that for typical velocity spectrum widths and PRF's (sample
rates) used with X-band Doppler radar, the coherence time was frequently too

short to give a significant improvement in the velocity estimates. However,

for infrared lidar the coherence times and sample rates permit a significant
improvement in reflectivity, velocity, and width estimates (Bilbro, et al.,
1984).

Furthermore,

Rastogi and Woodman

(1974) and Srivastiva, et al.

(1979) use multiple lag estimates of the correlation function to estimate

moments of a Gaussian shaped spectrum.

Several independent estimates of the

autocorrelation function can be found and a Gaussian shaped curve fitted to

these samples.

Sato and Woodman (1982) have used this nonlinear curve

fitting technique to estimate signal, clutter, and noise parameters at the

Arecibo ST radar.
3.4

UNCERTAINTIES IN SPECThUM

UMENT ESTIfM4AI

Any estimator has an associated uncertainty. In atmospheric radar signal

processing the velocity spectrum moments are being estimated with some
uncertainty that depends on the processing interval, the coherence time or
velocity width, and the SNR. Zrnic has published extensively on weather
radar spectrum estimator uncertainties

and his results are succinctly

described in Doviak and Zrnic (1984). A summary is given here.

3.4.1 Reflectivity
Marshall and Hitschfeld (1953) describe the probability density function of
the distributed weather target.

The received signal is a complex Gaussian

process which has a Rayleigh amplitude distribution and an exponential power

35

distribution. Thus, the mean received signal power is Ps with variance Ps2
and the coherence time is determined by the spectrum width of the signal.
The number of independent signal samples in a given integration time Td
seconds is approximately M I = 2/WT
d

(Doviak and Zric, 1984) where W is the

spectrum width (standard deviation) in Hertz. The number of independent

noise samples is just M = Td/Ts, the total number of samples in the dwell
time. Therefore, the variance of the mean power estimate is approximately
var(Pr) = Ps2 /MI + Pn2 /M .
Doviak and Zrnic

(3.23)

(1984) show that if the number of independent signal

samples is smaller than about 20 and a log receiver is used, the bias in the

estimated received power depends on M I and its variance is not exactly

proportional to 1/MI.
A square law receiver does not encounter these
problems.

Marshall and Hitschfeld (1953), as well as a recent review by

Ulaby, et al.

(1982),

show that the ratio of the mean power to the

fluctuating power associated with a single sample of a Rayleigh quantity is

5.6 dB.

Therefore, for M I independent samples the signal power estimates

are known within 5.6/Mj

dB.
I

Averaging independent samples obtained in

range can further reduce the variance.

3.4.2

Velocity

Woodman and Hagfors

(1969)

used statistical analysis of Gaussian random

variables to estimate the uncertainty of pulse pair velocities. Berger and

Groginsky (1973) applied perturbation analysis to derive the variance of the
independent and contiguous pulse pair frequency estimators.
later extended

Zrnic (1977b)

their results to spaced but correlated pulse pairs.

Two

conditions, both of which are usually satisfied for a large number of

samples (M), are necessary for the analysis to be accurate:

M >>

M >>

/47

(SNR- 1

W Ts

(3.24a)

+ 1)2 /

p2 (Ts)

(3.24b)

where W is the velocity spectrum width and p(Ts) = R(Ts)/R(0) is the

autocorrelation function at lag T s (the PRT) normalized to unity. At high
36

SNR and for large enough M

contiguous

pairs

typical

that both conditions are satisfied,

of

and for

radar Doppler processing, and for Gaussian

shaped spectra, the variance of the velocity estimate is

var(V) = f W/

8/7 M Ts .

(3.25)

Table 3 summarizes the velocity uncertainties at high SNR for three cases:
1) contiguous samples,
variance bound.
width in ms
(Wn).

-1

2)

independent sample pairs,

Expressions are given both in

and 3) the minimum

terms of the actual spectrum

(W) and the width normalized to the Nyquist velocity interval

Figure

3.5

shows

the

standard

deviation

of velocity

estimates

normalized to the Nyquist velocity interval and to the square root of the
number of samples M as a function of the normalized spectrum width.
is

parameter

for

the

two

sets

of

curves

--

those

for

The SNR

the typical

contiguous pairs and for less typical spaced pairs of pulses (Campbell and
Strauch,

1976;

Doviak and Zrnic,

1984).

Note that reasonably accurate

velocity estimates can be obtained for a given M doawn to SNR ~ 0 dB so long

as the Gaussian standard deviation velocity width is less than about 0.2 of
the Nyquist velocity interval 2Vmax.

Woodman

(1985) discusses

errors

for multiple lag velocity estimators

which the lags are statistically dependent.

in

By weighting the correlation

estimates in an optimum fashion, he concludes that for high SNR only a few
(2 or 3) lags are necessary.

3.4.3

Velocity spectrum width

Benham, et al. (1972) and Berger and Groginsky (1973) applied a perturbation
analysis to the spectrum width estimator and Zrnic
their results to arbitrarily spaced pulse pairs.

(1977b) later extended

Their primary result for

high SNR, contiguous pairs, and narrow, Gaussian shaped spectra is that the
variance of the velocity width is

var(W) = 3 XW / 64/T M Ts

37

(3.26)

THBLE 3

Expressions for variance of velocity estimators at high SNR.

Assumes
Gaussian spectra in white noise, low normalized velocity width (Wn=W/2Vmax)
and large M. Expressions apply to both pulse pair and Fourier transform
estimators.

Var(V) using W

Contiguous
samples
(typical case)

167r MTs 2

8]/7w MT

wn

X2

Independent
pairs
2M

Minirum
variance
bound

Var(V) using Wn

8Mr5 2

48 TS 2
2

-MX

3\

Wn4

W4

X2

MTs

38

Wn2

C\M
<>

V(

' 0

1.

u
Q
0

0.5

Q
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

NORMALIZED SPECTRUM WIDTH oavn

Fig 3.5

Spectrum
Velocity error as function of spectrum width and SNR.
M is
=2WTs/X.
vn=W/2Vn
interval,
Nyquist
width is normalized to
1
velocity
Nyquist
to
is
normalized
error
and
number of sample pairs
interval, 2va = 2Vmax . Small circles represent simulation values
(Doviak and Zrnic, 1984).

39

Table 4 summarizes the width uncertainties at high SNR for three cases:
1)
contiguous samples, 2) independent sample pairs, and 3) the minimum variance

bound.

Expressions are given both in terms of the actual spectrum width in ms-1

(W) and normalized to the Nyquist velocity interval (Wn). Figure 3.6 shows the
normalized standard deviations of the width estimates as a function of normalized

spectrum width for a range of SNR's. The width estimator is relatively good if
the normalized width is between 0.02 and 0.20 of the Nyquist interval and the SNR
> 5 dB.

40

TABLE 4
Expressions for variance of width estimators at high SNR.
Assumes Gaussian
spectra in white noise, low normalized velocity width (Wn=W/2Vmax) and large M.

Expressions apply to both pulse pair and Fourier transform estimators.

Var(W) using W

Contiguous
samples
(typical case)

Independent
pairs

3 X2

3
w
64W,/
642z MT

128J7r MTS 2

w2

x 2

8MT2
8MTs2
81]?

2M

Minimum

variance
bound

2880 T 4
4

Var(W) using wn

45 X2

W6

M X4

MTS2

41

2
Wn2

Wn

C
I

z 0.5
a

cn

Fig 3.6

.1
0.2
0.3
NORMALIZED SPECTRUM WIDTH, Ovn

0.4

Spectrum
Width error as a function of spectrum width and SNR.
width is normalized to Nyquist interval, vn=W/2Vmax=2WTs/X- M is

number of sample
interval, 2Vma
x .

pairs and error is normalized to Nyquist

Small circles represent simulation values

(Doviak and Zrnic, 1984).

42

4.

SIGNAL PROCESSING TO ETTMINATE BIAS AND ARIT'ACIS

The primary goal of an effective signal processing scheme is to provide

accurate,
echoes.

unbiased

estimates

of

the

characteristics

of

meteorological

This means that in addition to moment estimation, the signal

processing algorithms must also eliminate the degrading effects of ground

clutter targets,

range

aliasing and velocity aliasing.

Indeed, this

challenging aspect of signal processing has received considerable attention

in the recent literature.
4.1

DOPPLER TECHNIQUES FM GROUND CLITER SUPPRESSION

Ground clutter poses a significant problem for both coherent and incoherent
radar applications.

Clutter biases the reflectivity, mean velocity and

velocity spectrum width estimates.

It significantly reduces the effective

area of coverage at close range where the azimuth resolution is best. Even
weak clutter can frequently mask clear air echoes.
Fortunately, signal
processing can greatly reduce the effects of clutter.
(1981), Zrnic, et al.

Zrnic and Hamidi

(1982), and Evans (1983) address various aspects of

Doppler clutter cancellation.

Clutter cancellation
coherent systems.

is possible

for both coherent

(Doppler) and non-

Non-coherent techniques rely on the Rayleigh distribution

of the amplitude fluctuations of weather echo to differentiate between

clutter and weather (Geotis and Silver, 1976; Tatehira and Shimizu, 1978;
Aoyagi, 1983).
The performance of this approach uses the correlation of
successive samples which depends on the Doppler spectrum width (Sirmans and
Dooley, 1980). Clutter cancellation on most modern systems is performed via
Doppler techniques.

Coherent ground based systems rely on clutter being

nearly stationary and use high-pass digital filters to eliminate targets in

a narrow bandwidth near zero velocity.
requirements

and

clutter

filter

Groginski and Glover (1980) give

specifications

particular to weather radar systems.

43

and

design

concepts

4.1.1

Antenna and analog signal considerations

The first line of defense against clutter is an antenna with low sidelobes

and a good radar site. Main lobe clutter is very difficult to suppress
because clutter targets are usually much stronger than weather targets.
However, since sidelobes are usually down at least 20 dB (one way) from the
peak power, signal processing is effective in suppressing resulting clutter

power without problems caused by a saturated receiver.

Shorter wavelengths generally offer better signal-to-clutter ratios than
longer wavelengths given the same targets.
This is because the power
returned from Rayleigh scatterers goes inversely as the 4th power of the
radar wavelength, while large clutter targets will behave more like specular

reflectors having a lesser wavelength dependence (Barton and Ward, 1984).

Superior clutter cancellation performance depends critically on the linear

dynamic range of the transmitter/receiver system. This dynamic range is

governed primarily by the system phase noise and the linear dynamic range of
the receiver itself. The phase stability of the oscillators used in the
radar will determine the degree of clutter cancellation that is possible.
The effect of phase noise is to spill power from a coherent target into
white noise. In the case of a strong clutter target and a weak weather
target, even a relatively small amount of phase noise can obscure a weather
target under the phase noise floor. For Gaussian distributed phase noise
and a coherent clutter target, the maximum clutter-to-phase noise power
ratio (CNR) that can be achieved for small phase errors is straight forward
to compute (Skolnik, 1980) as
CNR= exp(-/2 }/(l-exp{-p 2 })

P-2

for P<<1

(4.1)

where p is the pulse-to-pulse rms phase error in radians of the complex

(baseband) signal. The maximum CNR that can be tolerated is equal to the
clutter-to-signal ratio (CSR) that corresponds to a signal-to-phase noise
power (SNR) of about 0 dB.

For example, a klystron transmitter can achieve

better than 0.1 degree rms phase error which corresponds to 55 dB CNR.
44

signal at 55 dB CSR would have an SNR of 0 dB. If 55 dB of main lobe clutter

power could be cancelled, and only the phase noise power or clutter residual

remained, there would be an adequate SNR for Doppler processing.

Some
coherent-on-receive magnetron systems may achieve only 5 degrees of phase
stability (21 dB CNR) depending on the quality of the phase lock loop that
synchronizes the receiver to the transmitted pulse.
Therefore, it is
frequently not cost-effective to design a signal processor capable of more

than 20-25 dB of clutter cancellation for many magnetron systems.

designed magnetron system can achieve much better phase stability.

A well

In many systems it is the dynamic range of the linear receiver that poses
the fundamental limit on the ability to separate weather signals from strong
clutter signals. If the linear receiver has a dynamic range of 50 dB, then
this will be the order of the maximum clutter-to-signal ratio that can be
handled.

High performance clutter cancellation that is commensurate with

the phase stability of a klystron typically requires a "fast AGC" gain

control and, essentially, floating point digital data conversion. Other AGC
techniques are less effective and may degrade the existing inherent quality
of a stable system. But because they introduce less noise than a typical
magnetron transmitter, they can be used in magnetron systems without
sacrificing overall system performance.
The simplest form of clutter cancellation by Doppler signal processing is to
simply ignore strongly reflecting narrow width targets that have velocities

near zero.

On a color velocity display, for example, those bins can be

assigned the background color. More sophisticated processors use either time

domain digital filtering or frequency domain filtering.

Which approach is

used depends on the general philosophy of signal processing that is employed

for spectrum moment estimation.

4.1.2

Frequency domain filtering.

Frequency domain processing was discussed earlier.

narrow spike (<1

ms-1)

Clutter is typically a

centered about zero frequency or DC (direct current).

Weather echoes are usually broader, so that it is possible to remove the

clutter and then interpolate the weather signal across the gap. The first
45

step in frequency domain filtering is to enter the frequency domain via some
spectrum estimation technique. This is usually done via an FFT. The choice
of the time-domain window is critical since the window sidelobes should be
matched to the dynamic range characteristics of the transmitter/receiver
system. For example, a 57 dB Blackman window (Harris, 1978) might be used
in a klystron system but it would not be justified for a magnetron system
that has a phase noise limited CNR of 25 dB.
Removal of clutter in the frequency domain is easily performed by the human
eye, and it

is

not difficult to develop algorithms that achieve ;30 dB

suppression.
Passarelli, et al. (1981) discuss several algorithms for
frequency domain clutter cancellation and point out the adaptive nature of
the general technique, i.e., both the notch width and depth of the filter
can be adjusted to remove only the clutter that is present, with minimal
distortion of overlapped weather or noise. On the other hand, time domain
filters usually, but not necessarily, have a fixed notch width and stop band
attenuation.
4.1.3 Time domain filtering
Time domain digital filtering has been an active research area for over 20
years (Kaiser, 1966; Gold and Rader,

1969; Oppenhiem and Schafer,

Rabiner and Gold, 1975; Tretter, 1976; Roberts and Mullis, 1987).

1975;
Precise

control of the digital transfer function allows filter characteristics not

obtainable with analog filters.
Digital filters fall into two general
categories, finite impulse response (FIR) filters and infinite impulse
response (IIR) filters. Both of these are used in current weather radars
wherein the I and Q values are filtered separately. An example of a simple
IIR filter is an exponential average of the I and Q values to determine and
remove the DC offset. An example of a simple FIR filter is to calculate the
DC offset over a fixed number of pulses and then subtract this value from
the pulses. In practice, more general FIR and IIR filtering techniques are
used that attenuate not only the DC, but also the low frequency components
around DC to achieve clutter suppression of more than 40 dB. Figure 4.1
shows a typical high-pass filter.

Filter design is fairly mechanical and

the parameters that are adjusted are the stopband attenuation, the stopband
46

I
I I cVs-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~___
~~~~~~~~~~~~I

-10
Z
z

TV__-

-20

-30

I
-50

I\
0

I
I

I, I

VELOCITY (m s')
Fig 4.la Clutter filter frequency response for a 3 pole infinite impulse
For ground clutter
response (IIR) high pass elliptic filter.
width of 0.6 ms-1 and scan rate of 5 rpm this filter gives about
40 dB suppression. V s = stop band. Vp = pass:band cutoff, Vmax= +

16 ms -1 (Hamidi and Zrnic, 1981).

47

Xk

Fig 4.lb

Implementation of 3rd order IIR clutter suppression filter;

z -1 is
K 1 - K4 are filter
coefficients (Hamidi and Zrnic,
1 PRT delay.

1981).

48

width, the transition band width and the passband ripple which if too large,
can bias the mean velocity.
The IIR filter is computationally more efficient to implement than a
FIR filter but, because of its transient response
comparable
is best run in a continuous mode with minimal
characteristics, it
perturbation such as those caused by slow AGC changes or PRF changes.
Initialization of the filter can improve the transient response
characteristics. Hamidi and Zrnic (1981) and Groginsky and Glover (1980)
evaluate IIR filters for weather radar systems.
FIR filters offer linear phase performance and are well suited for batch
processing of pulses since they operate on a finite number of pulses. This
makes them well-suited to slow AGC or multiple PRF techniques (i.e., where

the PRF is held constant while a batch of pulses is collected and then
changed for the next batch).
There are other types of clutter suppression algorithms that should be
Anderson's (1981) test of the mean block level subtraction
mentioned.
The parametric
technique offers 20 to 30 dB of clutter cancellation.
clutter cancellation techniques described by Passarelli
physical

models

of

clutter

and weather

along

with

(1981, 1983) use

estimates

of

the

autocorrelation function at various lags to compute the clutter power and

then estimate various Doppler spectral moments.

dB or more has been achieved.

Clutter suppression of 30

Sato and Woodman (1982) use a nonlinear

processing scheme to fit the observed clutter spectrum and extract the
spectral moments when clutter is about 50 dB stronger than the signal.

When a separate calibrated log channel is used for reflectivity measurement,

an uncalibrated linear channel can be used to remove the clutter

contribution from the log channel power estimate. The ratio of the signal
r = Pr[S]/Pr[ S + 3c is the same in
power to the signal plus clutter power
both the linear and the log channels. Therefore, after computing r from the
coherent (linear) channel data, the log channel signal power is

49

10 log Pr[S ] = 10 log Pr[S +

+ 10 log r.

(4.2)

When multiple PRT measurements are made for the purpose of extending the

unambiguous velocity interval, nearly all clutter filters have problems.

Anderson (1987) describes an interpolation scheme for the dual PEF ASR-9
radar.

4.2

RANGE/VELOCTTY AMBIGUITY RESOLUDTCN

A fundamental tradeoff exists with constant PRF Doppler radar. A large

unambiguous range (IRma)

requires a low PRF

PRF = ,/2RPx ;

(4.3)

however, a large unambiguous velocity (Vmax) (and accurate spectral moment

calculations) requires a large PRF

PRF = 4 Vmax /A

(4.4)

Another PRF tradeoff is that accurate measurement of the mean velocity

requires a high PRF since the Doppler spectrum width must be narrow relative

to

the

Nyquist

measurements

interval (high coherency) whereas accurate intensity

require a low PRF to acquire independent samples (low

coherency).

Signal processing offers several techniques for expanding the

unambiguous range and unambiguous velocity. These tradeoffs illustrate that

the choice of PRF must be optimized for different applications.
A performance benchmark for comparison purposes is an S-band (10 cm) radar

operating at 1 KHz PRF with an unambiguous velocity range of 25 ms'1 and an

This unambiguous range is too small for
The unambiguous
assuring that second trip echoes will not be present.
velocity is also too small to ensure that aliasing will not occur, but large
unambiguous range of 150 km.

enough that double aliasing (velocities greater than 75 ms -1 ) will be rare.

At C-band, the unambiguous velocity is halved so that double aliasing will
be fairly common and single aliasing will occur routinely. Reducing the PRF

50

to minimize second trip echoes, will make the velocity aliasing problem even

more serious at C-band.

Coherent lidar and profiler systems do not exhibit range/velocity
ambiguities. For Doppler lidar, the sampling rate during a single pulse can
be made sufficiently high with no impact on the unambiguous range. For the
case of a wind profiler operating at a high elevation angle, the long
wavelength and the steep angle of incidence provide such a large unambiguous
velocity that most profiler processing schemes utilize coherent averaging to
reduce the effective sample rate while simultaneously preserving processor
resources.

For microwave radar, range/velocity ambiguity is a serious problem in many

applications
techniques

(Doviak, et al.,

1978).

Fortunately,

there

are several

for mitigating these ambiguities and each technique has its

advantages and shortcomings.

for specific applications.

Selection of a technique is usually optimized

4.2.1 Resolution of velocity ambiguities

There are several techniques for handling range/velocity aliasing that are
not truly signal processing techniques, but rather techniques that use
physical modeling to correct aliased data. Frequently, continuity can be
used to detect velocity folding. For example, one does not expect to see 25
ms -1 discontinuities in velocity from bin to bin (in range or azimuth), so

they are assumed to be caused by aliasing.

The disadvantage of this
approach is that one must have some region with a known velocity to
correctly invoke continuity. Also, this technique requires that the echo
coverage be fairly continuous and may need manual input to perform final
editing (Bargen and Brown, 1980). Hennington (1981) uses another physical
modeling approach by estimating the mean wind profile obtained from a
sounding or other source to correct aliased velocities. The technique works
well when the perturbation velocities are small compared to the Nyquist
interval. A similar technique described by Ray and Ziegler (1977) uses the
velocity distribution along a radial to dealias velocities. Merritt (1984)
employs both continuity and a wind field model to dealias isolated areas.
51

Bergen

Boren, et al. (1986) describe an artificial intelligence approach.

and Albers

(1988) have investigated 2 and 3 dimensional dealiasing for

NEXRAD algorithms.

There are several signal processing techniques for extending the unambiguous

range/velocity.
1.

The criteria useful in evaluating the techniques are:

The algorithm should not preclude the use of clutter cancellation

techniques.
2.

The final moment estimates should have a conparable accuracy and be

made in a comparable time (number of pulses) to standard velocity

estimation techniques.
3.

The cost of implementing the technique should be comparable to standard

velocity/range processing.
Batch PRT.

interlaced

One approach to velocity/range ambiguity resolution is to use

PRT

sampling

whereby

short

PRT

is

used

for

velocity

measurements, and a long PRT is used for reflectivity estimates (Hennington,

1981).

For example, several pulses at a short PTR

are first transmitted,

followed by a clearing period (no transmission) and then one or two pulses
separated by a long PRr for the reflectivity estimate. The basic assumption
is that the PRT for the reflectivity estimate is sufficiently long so that

there are no second trip reflectivity echoes. The short PRr velocity
estimates will have two classes of range aliased echoes,- those that are
overlaid with the first trip echoes and those that are not overlaid with the

first trip echoes. When there is no overlap, the velocity estimates can
actually be assigned to the correct range. When first and higher trip
echoes are overlaid and one dominates the others in power by 10 dB or more,

then the velocity of the strong echo can be correctly estimated.

disadvantages of this batch technique are:

The

1.

Loss of velocity data where first and second trip echoes are overlaid

2.

and powers are nearly equal.

The technique may preclude the use of effective clutter cancelling.

52

3.

The data acquisition time is increased because the long PRT pulses are

unusable for making velocity estimates.

A similar approach is to have two radars share a common antenna which is

also known as a dual-frequency approach (Glover, et al., 1981). One radar

can sample at a long, constant PRT and the other can sample at a short,
constant PRT. Alternatively, two scans can be made at each elevation, a
long PRT scan for reflectivity and a short PRI scan for velocity. These
techniques are clearly more expensive but they allow excellent clutter
cancellation.
Multiple PRT and multiple PRF techniques can be used to dealias velocities.
Here, "multiple PRT" shall mean that the PRT is changed on a pulse-to-pulse
basis whereas "multiple PRF" shall mean that the PRF is fixed while a batch
of samples is collected and then changed for the next batch of samples.
general technique is described by Sirmans, et al. (1976).

The

Dazhang, et al.

(1984) and Zrnic and Mahapatra (1985) describe an actual implementation.

Dual PRT technique.

In the dual PRT (or staggered PRT) method the two PRT's

usually are in ratios of either 3/2 or 4/3.

First, one calculates the

first lag complex autocorrelation for each PRT, averaging over a number of
pulses. Then, the expanded velocity is calculated from
=

(981 -2)/47r(T2-T

1)

(4.5)

The corresponding unambiguous velocity is

Vma x = +

4/4(T2-T1

) .

(4.6)

According to this expression, a 3/2 PRT ratio yields an unambiguous velocity

that is twice that corresponding to the short PRT, while for a PET ratio of

4/3, the expanded velocity range is 3 times. Why not expand further? Since
the variance of the expanded range velocity estimate is based on the
difference between the two fundamental estimates, its variance is roughly
proportional to twice that of each fundamental estimate.
53

Fortunately, the

expanded velocity estimate need be used only to roughly dealias the two
fundamental estimates. The velocity estimate can be improved by averaging
the two velocity estimates to get the final estimator provided they have
been correctly dealiased. This averaging technique provides an estimator
that uses all available pairs of consecutive pulses, rather than half the
available pairs.
Since the dual PRT technique dealiases velocities by a large factor, one can
operate the radar at a lower PRF and thus have a larger unambiguous range.
Doviak and Zrnic (1984) point out that another advantage of the multiple PRT

technique is that second trip echoes will be incoherent or "whitened" and

thus not bias the first trip velocity estimates.
Dual PRF technique.

A disadvantage of the dual PRT technique is that

standard clutter filters are very difficult to implement.

This can be

overcome for some filtering schemes by using a dual PRF technique wherein a

sequence of pulses is collected at each of two PRF's and then each sequence
is processed separately. The data processing is identical to the standard
pulse pair processing except that the velocity from the previous sequence is

used along with the velocity from the current sequence to dealias the
current velocity. The sampling statistics are similar to the pulse pair,
except that for this technique to be viable the mean velocity change between

adjacent sequences must be small.

Because the PRF is

fixed while each batch is collected, the dual PRF

technique can employ a batch processing clutter filter such as an FFT or an

FIR filter.

An IIR filter can be used, but several pulses will be required

to clear the filter between PRF changes.

Because the basic dual PRF

processing is essentially the same as standard pulse pair processing at a
constant PRF,
it
is easier to implement on an existing system.
Unfortunately, the dual PRT feature of "whitening" the second trip echoes is
lost when dual PRF sampling is used.

54

4.2.2

Resoluticn of range ambiguities

Low PRF radars minimize overlaid echo but require sophisticated velocity
dealiasing techniques. If we promote the occurrence of overlaid echoes by
using a higher PRF to provide a large unambiguous velocity, then the range
aliased echoes must be resolved.
Most range dealiasing techniques use phase codes to distinguish between
first and second trip echoes. The simplest is the "magnetron" technique for
which each transmitted pulse has a random phase. A typical magnetron is
This means that
coherent-on-receive only for the current pulse.
contributions from multiple trip echoes are not coherent so that they appear

Consequently, the mean velocity and

as increased white noise power.
spectrum width are unbiased by overlaid multiple trip echoes. A problem
with this technique is that the reflectivity cannot be deduced unless
various received noise sources can be evaluated quantitatively. Also, the
additional white noise that is caused by multiple-trip echoes reduces the
sensitivity to first trip echoes and degrades the accuracy of mean velocity

and width estimates.

A similar technique can be developed using a fully coherent system such as a

klystron in conjunction with a phase shifter to change the phase of the

transmitted pulse. This permits the transmission of pseudo-random phase
sequences that have "white" properties (Chakrabarti and Tomlinson, 1976;
Sawate and Dursley, 1980).

The I and Q values can be "recohered" relative

to the first trip or the second trip, etc., by using the appropriate phase

shifts so that Doppler spectra can be evaluated for each trip (Laird, 1981).
This technique offers information for both the first and second trip
returns, but does not solve the problem of reduced sensitivity for overlaid
echoes.
Siggia (1983) addresses this issue by filtering the first trip echo from the
The
second trip echo and vice versa, to reduce noise contamination.
technique works well as long as the two Doppler spectra (1t and 2 nd trip)
are not so broad that they occupy a large fraction of the Nyquist interval.
Zrnic and Mahapatra (1985) have evaluated this technique.
55

Sachidananda and Zrnic (1986) describe a different technique where, instead

of inserting phase shifts to "whiten" the 2nd trip echo, the phase shifts

are inserted to cause the second trip Doppler spectrum to be a split bimodal
spectrum whose autocorrelation for lag 1 is zero.

This means that the

second trip echo does not bias the first trip velocity estimates.
All of these
clutter

"phase diversity"

filtering

techniques.

techniques
However,

are well
there

suited for standard

are

substantial

signal

processing computations to implement some of them.

4.3

POIARIZATION SWITCHING CO(SEQUENCES

Bringi and Henry (Chap. 19A) describe various polarization techniques which
provide

valuable

velocity
scattering

target

dealiasing
and

more

information

but

difficult.

instrumental

make

clutter

Differential

effects

preclude

processing techniques (Schnabl, et al., 1986).

use

suppression

phase
of

and

propagation,

simple

Doppler

However, it is possible in

principle to extract both the Doppler information and differential phase

shift simultaneously (Sachidananda and Zrnic, 1989; Doviak and Zrnic, 1984).
Keeler and Carbone (1986) describe a dual PRT scheme which allows processing
two orthogonal polarization states separately prior to velocity dealiasing.
The alternating horizontal and vertical polarized pulse sequence mitigates
contamination caused by range aliasing since the overlaid second trip echo
is depolarized (Doviak and Sirmans, 1973).

Processing
velocity

techniques
and

range

to

simultaneously

dealiasing,

and

provide

polarization

beginning to receive serious attention.

56

clutter

suppression,

processing

are

just

5.

EPDXRAfTORY SIGNAL PXCESSIN

TECHXNIQUES

Implementations of modern signal processing algorithms on atmospheric radars

have evolved slowly in the last several years.
Modern digital signal
processing algorithms have been difficult to implement for a variety of
reasons, but the algorithms are well known (Kailath, 1974). Programmable
processors with the speed to implement many of these algorithms and to
explore their application to distributed targets, rather than point targets,
is now possible.
5.1

PUISE OCfMPRESSICN

Pulse compression, or wideband waveform, schemes for improved radar range

resolution were first theoretically described by Woodward's (1953)
fundamental paper.

Klauder, et al. (1960) and Cook (1960) later described

the linear FM (chirp) pulse which has been widely used in military radars.
Reid (1969) described a CW meteorological radar using pseudo-random coding.
Barton (1975) has edited a collection of pulse compression papers which

details the chirp technique.

Lewis,
coded pulse compression waveforms.

et al.

(1986) emphasize poly-phase

Probably the first use of pulse compression for atmospheric distributed

targets was on the Arecibo ionospheric radar (Farley, 1969; Gray and Farley,
1973).

The

STORMY

weather

group

at

McGill

University

implemented

compression scheme for reflectivity processing in the early 70's (Fetter,

1970; Austin, 1974).

Their use was to provide many independent samples of

intensity within a given range cell to improve the reflectivity estimate.

They did not attempt any velocity measurements using their pseudo-random
phase coded pulse. In the late 70's Krehbiel and Brook (1979) reported
using a wideband noise waveform on the New Mexico Tech "Redball" radar to
provide reflectivity estimates during the short dwell time of their fast
scanning radar. Chadwick and Cooper (1972) and Keeler and Frush (1983a and
1983b) have described the principle of pulse compression Doppler
measurements on microwave weather radars using distributed targets.
Browning, et al. (1978) describe the 10 cm pulsed Doppler radar at Defford,
57

England which was modified to generate 4 Js, 5 MHz chirp pulses and measure
Doppler shifts from ice crystals at 8 km range.

Chadwick and Strauch (1979)

demonstrated an FM-CW waveform on a 10 cm Doppler weather radar.

Woodman

(1980b) shows how a continuous wave phase coded waveform was used in the

bistatic mode at Arecibo.

Recently
information using this technique.

he

has

obtained

full

spectrum

Pulse compression is a well established waveform design technique in the

military and aviation radar communities and has been used in the ST/MST
radar community
Woodman,

(Crane,

1980;

Gonzales

and Woodman,

1985) and the lidar community (Oliver, 1979),

1984;

Sulzer and

but has not been

seriously investigated for microwave Doppler weather radar use.

The reasons

for this are:

1.

Range resolution and transmit power using standard high peak power

pulsed radars have been adequate to achieve the required scientific

goals.
2.

Dwell times have been limited by mechanical scanning rates to tens of

milliseconds, thereby yielding the several independent samples of the

Rayleigh fluctuations necessary to obtain accurate reflectivity
estimates.
3.

Presence of range time sidelobes on pulse compression waveforms causes

range smoothing and large bias errors in high reflectivity gradients.

5.1.1

Advantages of pulse omupression

The driving force for exploring pulse compression in weather radars is the

desire for ground based and airborne Doppler radars to rapidly sample the
volume at a spatial resolution adequate for mesoscale or cloud physics
analyses.

These systems fall into the short dwell time category.

Dwell

times of only a few milliseconds are insufficient for averaging independent

Rayleigh

fluctuations

to reduce

the variance

of parameter estimates.

Therefore, independence must be gained in some other way, in particular by

multiple frequency schemes or spatial averaging.

Marshall and Hitschfeld

(1953) pointed out that frequency separations greater than the inverse pulse

width give independent Rayleigh returns.

58

Pulse compression waveforms give

independent returns (to first order) at spatial resolution proportional to

the inverse bandwidth (Nathanson, 1969). Either technique gives independent
returns over short dwell times ( <5 ms) so that the antenna beam can be
scanned at least an order of magnitude faster than typical weather radars
(Keeler and Frush, 1983b). Strauch (1988) proposes a burst chirp waveform
relevant to short dwell time weather radars.
Another application of pulse compression waveforms is in solid state
transmitter systems which typically are peak power limited to low values
compared to klystron transmitters, but can sustain very long pulse widths
and generate average powers comparable to the tube systems with greater
reliability.
Pulse compression techniques could be used with these high
duty cycle systems to achieve range resolution corresponding to a much
shorter pulse length. The NOAA network wind profilers will incorporate
pulse compression for this purpose.
5.1.2

Disadvantages of pulse ccmpression

There are tradeoffs associated with using pulse compression to achieve
faster scan time.

The tradeoff involves reduced radar sensitivity with a

compressed pulse compared to a single frequency pulse of the same duration

and power.

While the full benefit of the average transmitted power is

achieved, however the noise bandwidth must be increased to accommodate the
pulse bandwidth.

Therefore, the SNR of the individual samples is degraded.

Keeler and Frush (1983a) describe how this tradeoff relates to the "timebandwidth product" (TB) of the compressed pulse.
For the same average
transmitted power the increase in independence is TB and the decrease in SNR
is TB. For example, a chirp waveform 1 microsecond long sweeping 10 MHz of
bandwidth has a TB = 10.

Range samples spaced by more than 15 m are

independent and have a SNR ten times lower than the uncompressed 1
microsecond pulsed waveform. Frequently, the independent range samples can
be averaged to provide estimates having a reduced variance while allowing
much faster scan rates.
The primary disadvantage is a contribution to the backscatter from range
time sidelobes. Because the receiver filter output is the cross-correlation
59

of the received waveform and the time reversed transmit waveform (a matched
filter), range time sidelobes will cause data "blurring" in range space
similar to that caused by antenna sidelobes in the transverse spatial
dimension.
Range time sidelobes (and antenna sidelobes) are especially
troublesome in high reflectivity gradients.

Because atmospheric targets are

distributed in space, it is the integrated sidelobes that contribute to the

distortion. They are analogous to the integrated antenna sidelobes which
contribute interference from distributed targets at the same range. The
contamination problem is particularly troublesome in downward looking radars
from air or space platforms when one desires to estimate precipitation
directly above the strongly reflecting earth surface.
Careful waveform
design and tapering based on digital waveform generation rather than analog
devices may alleviate the range time sidelobe distortion (Farina, 1987).
For echoes with sufficiently
ST/MST radars

using

Schmidt, et al.,

long correlation times, as

is the case of

long wavelengths, complementary codes

(Golay, 1961;

1979; Woodman, 1980a; Gossard and Strauch, 1983; Wakasugi

and Fukao, 1985) completely cancel the range time sidelobes.

robust schemes, like quasi-complementary codes

However, more

(Sulzer and Woodman, 1984)

show good results in practice when non-linearities in the system distort the

desired pulse shape.

The direct application of complementary codes is not

compatible with the shorter wavelength weather radar and lidar system.

The second disadvantage for pulse compression waveforms is the increase in

minimum range caused by transmitting a long pulse. Reception cannot begin

until the entire transmit waveform is finished. Pulses longer than several
microseconds

are unacceptable

for close ranges.

The NWS wind profiler

solution is

to extend the scan time using a short pulse mode for short
ranges and use a long pulse mode for long ranges.
Other techniques also
exist.
A third disadvantage relates to the availability of bandwidth.

Research

systems are not seriously constrained, but operational systems may require
bandwidths which do not fit into the channelized frequency assignments.

60

5.1.3

Ambiguity function

The tradeoff in sensitivity for a larger number of independent samples gives

considerable flexibility in waveform design that the concept of the

so much flexibility in

"ambiguity function"

fact

was developed by Woodward

(1953) to study the effects on range and velocity ambiguities for a specific
waveform.

For our purposes this ambiguity function is indispensable for

understanding the receiver response to targets at other ranges and other

velocities from that to which the receiving filter is matched.

Weather

targets are distributed in range and velocity by their very nature and are
especially sensitive to these undesirable responses.

The

ambiguity

function

defines

the

ability

of

waveform

to

resolve

different targets in range and velocity based on the power response of a

filter matched to some specific range time and Doppler shift (Nathanson,
1969;

Skolnik,

1980;

Brookner,

1977).

Figure

5.1

shows the

ambiguity

diagram for a single FM chirp waveform in range (r) and velocity () space.
Note that targets having non-zero velocities at ranges different from the
desired range
function

(r=0)

evaluated

contribute significantly
along

the

axis

to the

(i.e.,

autocorrelation function of the waveform

0=0)

filter
is

output.
identically

The
the

(Frank, 1963; Cook and Bernfeld,

1967; Barton, 1975).

Atmospheric

radars

involve

estimation

of the

return power and velocity

rather than detection of such a target at some position in range-velocity

space.

Our primary interest in the ambiguity diagram is to study the range

time sidelobes as a function of Doppler offset.

plot

of

the

ambiguity

function

autocorrelation function.
order only

103

Hz

along

the

It is easy to show that the

range

axis

is

simply

the

Real weather targets having Doppler shifts of

compared to pulse bandwidths

of

107

Hz

allow us to

concentrate our attention to this narrow strip of the ambiguity function

along the range axis.
kept

small

velocity.

to

All the range time sidelobes in this strip must be

avoid contamination

Known waveform

of targets at the desired range and

design techniques may

allow tailoring of the

waveform to our "small velocity" case to keep sidelobes in this narrow

61

Ijx

(r, ) I
Io1O6

/
I

Fig 5.1

Ambiguity diagram for single FM chirped pulse waveform with TB=10.

0 is velocity dimension. Targets
r is range dimension.
distributed in (r,) space contribute to the filter output
proportional to the ambiguity function. For atmospheric targets,
Doppler shift frequencies are typically very small relative to
pulse bandwidth (Rihaczek, 1969).

62

ambiguity region acceptably small (Deley, 1970; Kretschmer and Lewis, 1983;
Costas, 1984; and Lewis, et al., 1986).

5.1.4

CCpariso

with multiple frequency sdceme.

Krehbiel and Brook

(1968) and Keeler and Frush (1983a) show that a pulse

compression waveform with

time-bandwidth

product TB has

characteristics

similar to a multiple frequency radar using the same time and bandwidth
factors.

Consecutive pulses may be

generated at different frequencies and

processed in separate receivers tuned to the different frequencies.

This

scheme yields the same number of independent samples for the same total
pulse duration and total bandwidth.

The advantage of the multi-frequency

scheme, aside from the straightforward parallel receiver implementation, is

reduced range time sidelobes.

5.2
At

AiAPTIVE FJIIERING AIXIcTHMS

Stanford University

in

the early

1960's, Widrow and his

colleagues

(Widrow and Hoff, 1960) developed a class of filters that could "learn"
their received signal environment and, in time, adapt their characteristics
to optimally

filter

an

incoming

signal.

Initial

applications

were

in

pattern classification (Widrow, 1970), but use in adaptive antennas (Widrow,

et al.,

1967)

and the closely related field of spectrum line enhancement

(Zeidler, et al., 1978) and noise (interference) cancelling (Widrow, et al.,

1975a)

quickly

followed.

Griffiths

(1975) has described

instantaneous

frequency estimation techniques applicable to Doppler radars.

Atmospheric

radar applications (i.e., non-military) have been sparse mainly because the
computational load associated with constantly changing filter coefficients
could not be accommodated until recently.

Keeler and Griffiths

(1977) have

reported adaptive frequency estimation schemes applied to acoustic radars

sensing boundary layer winds.

With the advent of fast programmable signal processors, we can expect to see
a rash of new applications

in radar

for adaptive

filtering techniques.

Adaptive filter systems are characterized by both a time variable transfer

function and the ability to self adjust, or be trained, to their environment
for optimizing some measurement criterion
63

(Alexander, 1986b).

common

index for optimization is the minimum mean squared error (mmse) between the

processed output signal and a known desired output (or at least one which is
correlated with the desired signal). Figure 5.2 depicts a 2 dimensional (2
weight) error surface. Widrow's (1970) popular Ieast Mean Square (IMS)
algorithm estimates the gradient of the quadratic error surface and steps

the weights toward the minimum error value.

Nearly identical adaptive techniques have been developed for antenna beam
steering by Howells (1976), Gabriel (1976, 1980), Appelbaum (1976), Monzingo
and Miller (1980), and Compton (1988). Adaptive antenna systems have the
capabilities of tracking desired signals in space, maximizing the SNR, and
nulling out undesired interfering signals. The optimization criterion is
maximization of signal to interference plus noise ratio, which for many
cases is identical to the IMS criterion. For radar applications the beam
can be steered to the desired direction and the adaptation can
simultaneously maximize the SNR by spectral shaping and spatially nulling
any interfering sources.

Van Veen and Buckley (1988) give a tutorial review

of spatial beam forming techniques.

5.2.1 Adaptive filtering applications
The structure for a performance feed back adaptive system is shown in Figure
5.3 where we note the input signal xk, the adaptive processor output yk, the

yet to be defined desired response dk, and the error signal, ek = dk - Yk.
This error signal drives an adaptive algorithm which controls the transfer
function of the adaptive processor, and its output yk. Various closed loop
structures are possible as are a variety of adaptive algorithms. Widrow and
Stearns (1985), Honig and Messerschmitt (1984), Alexander (1986b), and
Haykin (1986) give excellent overviews of these structures and algorithms.
Widrow, et al. (1976) describe the learning characteristics of IMS adaptive
filters in both stationary environments when the filters converge to an
optimal setting and non-stationary environments where the filter continues
to adapt to the time variable input signal statistics. Adaptive filters
have found application in data prediction schemes, system identification or
modeling, parameter tracking, deconvolution and equalization, and
interference (clutter) cancelling (Alexander, 1986a). Usually the
64

LU
()

.0

W2

WI
WI

Fig 5.2

Prediction error surface for 2 weight adaptive filter.

The LMS
algorithm estimates the negative gradient of the quadratic error
and steps toward the minimum mean square error (mse). The optimum
weight vector is

W* =

(0.65,-2.10).

If the input statistics

change so that the error surface varies with time, the adaptive
weights will track this change (Widrow and Stearns, 1985).

65

Inni it

Xk

Error
k

Fig 5.3

is
(dk)
The desired response
structure.
Adaptive filter
coefficients
filter
The
adaptive
the
application.
by
determined
(Wk) and/or the output signal (Yk) are the parameters used for
spectrum moment estimation (Widrow and Stearns, 1985).

66

application determines the origin of the reference signal and the specific
adaptive algorithm to be used.

Sibul

(1987) has edited a collection of

application papers for adaptive

filters.

Further applications in neural

networks and fault tolerant computing are being explored (Lippmann, 1987;
Shriver, 1988).

As

an example

of an atmospheric

radar application, an

adaptive

linear

prediction filter will improve the SNR of the received signal so that the
moment estimation will yield improved estimates.

In the frequency domain

the prediction filter acts as a narrow band pass filter having time variable
center

frequency which passes the received signal while suppressing the

spectral

noise

components.

Tufts

(1977)

describe this enhancement procedure.

signal, dk.

and Anderson,

et

al.

(1983)

The input signal xk is the desired

The previous input samples (xkl, xk_2,

..., xk-L} = XT are

filtered to predict, or estimate, the present sample xk.

The error signal

is the difference between Xk=dk and its estimate Yk, i.e. ekx-yk.

The

filter is adjusted using the IMS algorithm so that the mean squared error
signal <ek2> is minimized.

Sequentially then, the filter adjusts itself to

predict the input signal more accurately.

Some error will be present but

the predicted signal will have an improved SNR over the input itself.

In

this sense, we have an adaptive matched filter which can track the input
signal as

its characteristics

(e.g., its Doppler shift and width)

change

with time (Tufts and Rao, 1977).

Probing

deeper

into

the

mathematics,

we

find

that

the

algorithm

estimating the negative gradient of a quadratic error surface

dimensional

is

in the L

adaptive filter weight vector space and adjusting the filter

weight vector Wk to step towards the minimum mean squared prediction error
with

every

defines

the

iteration.
highly

This operation
efficient

steepest

plus some
gradient

supporting mathematics
descent

IMS

adaptive

algorithm (Widrow, 1970; Widrow, et al., 1975b).

Wk+l = Wk + 2gek Xk,

67

(5.1)

where g is a precisely defined constant which determines the convergence

rate and the excess noise generated by the adaptation process.

It is easy to show that the one step prediction structure leads to the Lth
order maximum entropy
Griffiths, 1975).

(ME) spectrum estimate

(Lang and McClellan, 1980;

Keeler and Lee (1978) have shown how the complex, first

order, one step prediction filter yields the pulse pair frequency estimator,
which has been made adaptive.

Keeler

(1978) further reports a bias and

variance of an adaptive ME frequency estimator.

What

makes

difference

adaptive
in

prediction

correlation

time

and

SNR

of the

enhancement

desired

sinusoid) and the unpredictable white noise.

possible

narrow band

is

the

signal

(or

Similarly, the long coherence

time of clutter input components may allow these interfering signals to be

rejected using adaptive interference (noise) cancelling filters (Widrow, et
al., 1975a).

For example, airborne Doppler clutter can be represented by a

strong, narrow spectral

return having a variable

Doppler shift

and sea

clutter may be sufficiently offset from zero Doppler that an adaptive scheme
may provide adequate suppression in both cases.

5.2.2

Adaptive antenna applications

Adaptive beamforming was motivated by a desire to steer the main beam in a

desired

direction

while

simultaneously

nulling

interfering

sources

and

maximizing the signal to interference plus noise ratio at the output of the
adaptive beamformer (Haykin, 1985a; Compton, 1988).

Atmospheric radars are

troubled by interfering ground clutter returns and could benefit from using
an adaptive antenna.

For example, an RHI scanning radar could dynamically

place a line of nulls along the dominant ground clutter return angles near
0 elevation.

Or a ground reflected multipath ray could be suppressed.

radio communications present slowly time varying

interfering sources

UHF
for

wind profilers which could be suppressed by adaptive array techniques.

Forming nulls in the array antenna patterns in real time as the interferers
become active or as the antenna elevation increases may be feasible in many
cases.

Constraints on the adaptation speed and antenna scan rates may limit
68

performance of these proposed systems since stationarity over a finite time

period is usually required.

Furthermore, narrowbeam systems require several

thousand array elements and a digital control system for a truly adaptive 3
dimensional

beam.

Cost is a limiting

factor in this regard

(Mailloux,

1982).

Array processing utilizes multi-channel processing algorithms to process the

individual signals from each element to effect both spatial beamforming and
temporal filtering.
difficulties.

Vector and matrix based algorithms introduce special

Haykin (1985a) describes array signal processing algorithms

which have been applied to a variety of fields, e.g. seismology, radio

astronomy, tomographic imaging, sonar, and radar.
et al.

(1985) have proposed sequentially changing (at the pulse repetition

rate) the pattern of a phased array antenna.

allows

Recently, Sachidananda,

contributions

to velocity

Subsequent Doppler processing

estimates entering through the antenna

sidelobes to be whitened and/or removed (Zrnic and Sachidananda, 1988).

5.3

UITI-CHANNEL PRDCESSING

As atmospheric remote sensors become more sophisticated and programmable

processors

achieve

algorithms

will

channels

greater

become

computational

more

can be thought

common.

of as

power, multi-channel

The

vector

signals

from

processing

separate

input

time series and processed, or

filtered, collectively by using the correlated information in the channels

to produce more accurate parameter estimates than if they were processed
separately

(Marple, 1987).

The coefficients of these multi-channel filters

are found by solving a set of linear equations similar to the single channel
equations used in linear prediction filtering and associated applications.
Wiggins and Robinson
"normal" equations.

(1965) give a recursive technique for solving these

Strand (1977) and Morf, et al. (1978) describe multi-

channel maximum entropy spectrum estimation, which is a direct result of

solving the normal equations.

In addition to radar array antenna data, dual polarization data is another

example of a multi-channel complex input signal.

Horizontal and vertical

channels of a dual linear polarization radar can be processed to yield cross

69

parameters. Each input data point can be thought of as a 2x2 matrix, the
polarization matrix, rather than a complex I and Q estimate. The set, or
vector of these matrix inputs is then processed using complex matrix
algorithms which are designed to optimally and jointly estimate target
parameters.
Processing both channels simultaneously yields additional
information that could not be obtained if they were processed independently.
Integrated sensor systems can benefit by multi-channel processing schemes.
A multi-channel algorithm might make use of 10 minute wind profiler data and
1 minute radar or lidar data.

Wind profiles on multiple scales would be

produced with lower error than either system operating alone. Application
of coherence functions to these multi-channel sensors provides an analytic
tool for correlated data which improves the analysis.
5.4

A IPRICI INFR4ATICN

Information that is known in advance, a priori information, can be used to

improve atmospheric parameter estimates. Most remote sensors treat each
spatial resolution volume independently from all others. However, there are
physical constraints in the atmosphere that limit the rates of change of
certain parameters. These constraints are known in advance and can be used
to constrain the processing algorithm to produce better estimates of
velocity, for example, than if they were ignored. To be most effective this
a priori knowledge should be used as early in the processing chain as
practicable.

For example, if one knows (or is confident that the received

signal consists of a Gaussian shaped signal spectrum in white noise, then

one should be able to use this prior information to generate a lower error

velocity estimate than if the information were ignored.

Signal processing algorithms constrained by known a priori information
typically yield simpler and faster algorithms that give lower variance
estimates than unconstrained estimators. Frequently these estimators are
maximum likelihood, i.e., minimum variance, and can be readily computed
using modern processing hardware.

70

6.

SIGNAL PFXFESSCR IMPTrFMTATION

Signal processing encompasses analog and digital processing of both the

transmitted and received radar signal. Because of timing requirements, most
pulse-to-pulse control functions are also handled by the signal processing
system. In this section we discuss the signal processing implementations
that are found on modern radars and the tasks typically allocated to the
signal processor.
6.1

SIGNAL PROCESSING CONTROL FUNCTICNS

Signal processors usually perform a variety of radar control functions and

serve

as the interface between the radar system and the radar data
processing system (usually a host computer). These control tasks include:
1.

Pulse waveform selection

2.

Polarization switching

3.

Phase sequencing

4.

Pulse sequence generation

5.

Range gate trigger generation

6.

Linear channel gain control

7.

Calibration pulse injection

Radar control starts at the transmitter.

The signal processor usually

generates the PRF, although good practice dictates that the basic clock be
derived from a reference oscillator that is shared between the processor and
PRF control by the processor minimizes the possibility of range
bin jitter caused by timing uncertainties in the A/D sampling and is
the radar.

particularly important if a multiple PRF processing scheme is employed since

the processing must be synchronized with the PRF.

Because of the need to preserve the duty cycle limit of the transmitter, it

is a safety feature and a convenience to have the signal processor also

control the pulse width and bandwidth filter selection.

71

Since the signal processor is in control of the PRF, it is typically

assigned the task of controlling all pulse-to-pulse functions such as phase
control for pseudo-random phase processing and polarization switch control.
This approach assures that the processing is properly synchronized with all
aspects of the transmit-receive sequence.
Built-in calibration test units that operate during normal data collection

are now found on some systems.

The idea is to inject a pulse of known power

and phase characteristics in the last few range bins for each transmitted
pulse or during antenna repositioning intervals with the transmitter off.
These bins are then processed identically to all other bins. The output
values can be monitored in real time to verify that the system is
functioning properly, and for system power calibration.
In addition, the
injected signal can be made coherent so that the Doppler processing can be

checked.

The advantage of this approach is that the entire receiver and

processing system can be verified without interrupting normal operations.

The remainder of this section is devoted to linear channel gain control

techniques. Currently, the receiver systems for most applications
use
analog signal -processing techniques for deriving the linear channel I and Q

(in-phase and quadrature) and log channel outputs.

The log channel output

is typically used for quantitative power measurements because of its dynamic

range capabilities (90-100 dB). The linear channel measurements are used
for extracting information related to the phase of the signal, i.e., mean,
velocity, spectral width and clutter measurements, and can provide power
estimates as well. The linear channel measurements operate over a more
restricted dynamic range, typically z40-60 dB, that is usually shifted by
means of an automatic gain control (AGC) loop over a range of ~100 dB. It
is the linear channel gain control problem where digital signal processing

often makes its first appearance in the radar processing chain.

Linear receiver gain control is typically performed via one of the following

methods:
1.

IF limiting
72

2.

Sensitivity time control (STC)

3.

Slow AGC

4.

Fast AGC

5.

Multiple receivers

In the first case, a "soft" limiter is inserted at IF before phase detection

(Nathanson, 1969;

Zeoli, 1971;

Frush, 1981 ).

The advantage of this

technique is that it is extremely simple to implement and permits the linear

receiver to operate over a fairly wide dynamic range with good mean velocity

retrieval.

However, if the Doppler spectrum is bimodal, such as for ground

clutter mixed with a weather spectrum, this technique tends to "capture" the

This behavior makes it

stronger signal and suppress the weaker one.
unsuitable for systems that require clutter cancellation.
For the STC case, the linear channel gain is increased with range in an
attenpt to represent the average characteristics of weather and clutter.
Since there is no feedback based on actual power measurements, it is easy to
implement.

However, it is a near certainty that strong clutter targets will

cause saturation of the linear receiver at close range unless an IF limiting

approach is used as well.

detectable at full gain

Likewise, weak clear air echoes that would be

at close range, will be attenuated beyond

detectability.
For the slow AGC, the log receiver measurements from the previous ray are
used to optimize the linear receiver gain for the targets that are actually

present at each range. The samples for an integration period are collected
If the log receiver is used for
while the gain is held constant.
quantitative power measurements, the actual gain does not need to be known

with great precision (within 3 dB is usually satisfactory). Also, since the

gain is held constant, the phase shifts that are introduced by the gain
control are constant from pulse-to-pulse so that these do not have to be
corrected. The primary drawback is that the ability to distinguish between
the clutter and weather components of the signal may be limited by the
Furthermore, strong
fundamental dynamic range of the linear receiver.
reflectivity gradients will cause erroneous gain settings.
73

The fast AGC, or instantaneous AGC (IAGC) approach, for which the gain of

the linear receiver is adjusted for each range and each pulse, is used where
there is a high degree of phase purity in the transmitted pulse

(e.g.,

klystron systems). The power measurement for either the previous pulse, or
the current pulse (in which case a delay line is required) is used to set
the receiver gain. This is the most complicated form of AGC to implement
since it requires a very accurate calibration of both the amplitude and
phase response of the receiver as a function of gain and the input power.

Mueller and Silha (1978) employ a real-time calibration and correction

scheme so that the output phase of the linear receiver requires no
correction. Properly implemented this approach provides wide dynamic range
linear response for high-performance clutter cancellation and more accurate

estimates of the power than a log channel.

Another approach is to employ multiple receivers, each optimized for a fixed
range of input power with the advantage that all samples can be digitized
and the optimal receiver can be decided with a digital algorithm. Moreover,
switching transients and calibration procedures are minimized.
6.2

SIGNAL A/D CONVERSICN AND CAIBRATICN

Figure 6.1 shows a block diagram of a typical digital, time domain Doppler
signal processor.
The digital signal processor provides the interface to
the radar I, Q and log signals, and connects to a host computer that
provides the
communications.

user

interface,

data

processing,

display

and

After analog phase detection, the I, Q and log values are digitized.

data

In the

case of a fast AGC, a digital AGC value may also serve as an "exponent" for

a floating point representation.

The precision that is required for
digitizing the I and Q values depends primarily on the underlying precision
of the linear receiver and the dynamic range limitations imposed by ground

clutter induced phase noise. In computing dynamic range, an additional bit

amounts to 6 dB more power measurement capability. However, because the
receiver noise level requires about two bits to coherently integrate weak
74

g
ication

Fig 6.1

Block diagram of a typical signal processor.

75

signals

and one bit denotes the sign of bipolar data, the usable
instantaneous dynamic range is limited to ~54 dB for 12 bit samples. This
range provides a margin for an AGC that may not optimize its use of the
receiver dynamic range and offers reasonable clutter rejection. For the log
channel, the quantization of the digitized signal determines, to some
extent, the accuracy of the final power estimates. However, it is usually
the inherent large fluctuation of 30 dB for Rayleigh signals (Nathanson,
1969) that imposes the more fundamental limit.
The A/D converter values should not saturate.

I and Q saturation causes

harmonic generation in the frequency domain. Furthermore, image spectrum

generation about DC in the spectrum is frequently caused by imbalance in the
amplitude and/or phase of the I and Q signals (Hansen, 1985).
Time domain averaging is an important step

in processing ST/MST radar

signals to reduce the noise (Strauch, et al., 1984).

The averaging not only

increases the SNR by N, but also increases the dynamic range by 10 log N.
The discussions above illustrate the need for time series and power spectrum

displays

to optimize radar performance.

Just as

important,

the host

processor must be equipped with software to provide the interactive displays

that are required for accurate system adjustment and verification.

6.3

REEIETlVlTY PROCESSING

The precise measurement of the received power is an important objective for

most weather radar systems, and for noncoherent systems, this is the primary
measurement. In the pre-Doppler era, there was interest in the so-called
"power-fluctuation spectrum" and spectrum width estimates (Rutkowski and
Fleisher, 1955; Atlas, 1964;).
Most radar systems, whether Doppler or
noncoherent, employ a wide dynamic range log receiver that operates at IF.
These systems merely average the log values which results in an asymptotic

(with the number of independent samples) 2.51 dB bias in the estimation of

the average power for Rayleigh distributed targets (Doviak and Zrnic, 1984).
There are other types of receiver responses, such as the linear and square
law receivers, and the log receiver has the largest standard deviation for
power estimates (Zrnic, 1975a). However, in view of calibration errors and
76

the uncertainties in relating power measurements to rainfall rate, the log

receiver performance is adequate for many applications. When differential
reflectivity measurements are required, one attempts to measure small
differences in power so that the square law receiver is preferred (Bringi,
et al., 1983; Chandrasekar, et al., 1988).
Two common techniques that are used for power averaging are the exponential
average (Zrnic, 1977a) and the uniformly weighted average. Exponential
averaging is calculated using
Pk = Pk-1 *(1-C) + Pk *C

(6.1)

where Pk is the current estimate of average power based on the new sample pk
and the previous estimate Pk-1 . C is a weighting constant between 0 and 1.
When C is close to 1, the current pulse is more strongly weighted. This
technique is extremely simple to implement in real time and provides a new
estimate for each pulse. Since real time digital processing capabilities
have improved, and analog CRT displays are rapidly being replaced by color
displays, this technique has been largely replaced by a simple uniformly
weighted average over a fixed number of pulses.
Averaging of independent samples is required to obtain accurate reflectivity

estimates.

Since. independence is governed by the coherence time this

imposes a fundamental constraint on the scan rate for data collection. For
example, at 3 rpm and 500 Hz PRF, one can average only 27 pulses per degree
of antenna rotation. Depending on the wavelength and the spectrum width of
the scatterers, not all of these pulses will be independent.

A technique

for increasing the number of independent pulses is to average in range using

a range bin spacing that is greater than the pulse width. This requires
somewhat more processing power, but results in more accurate reflectivity
estimates. Also, averaging can be adjusted as a function of range so that
the resulting
dimension.

average range

interval

77

is comparable to the beamwidth

The conversion from dBm to dBZ is done via the radar equation which involves

the radar constant and range normalization. The term "STC" is sometimes
inappropriately used to refer to the digital range normalization that is
performed in the processor.

This term is a reference to the analog

technique that was used in the past to represent the radar reflectivity on
CRT display. Digital range normalization merely adjusts the output values
appropriately without causing the loss of sensitivity at short range.

6.4

'THRESHOEIDfING

R DATA QUALITY

The goal of thresholding is to have the signal processor flag data that

may be corrupted by bias and artifact.

Clarity of presentation of the
spectral moments is important to a user trying to interpret a display. For
subsequent data processing and product generation

(e.g., CAPPI's, cross-

sections, rainfall accumulations), noise, bias and other artifacts increase

the computational demand on the data processor and degrade the final
product.
Finally, thresholding followed by run length encoding for data
compression can greatly reduce the communications bandwidth requirements for

transmitting radar data and products and reduce the archive resources that
are required to store them.
There are numerous thresholding criteria and variables that are employed in

modern radars:
1.

Incoherent signal-to-noise power

2.

Coherent signal-to-noise power

3.

Doppler spectrum width

4.

Clutter-to-signal power

5.

Zero velocity

6.

Geometric criteria

7.

Statistical criteria

The incoherent signal-to-noise power is calculated by comparing the received

power at a range bin with the system noise power (S+N/N).

This criterion is

most commonly used to threshold the wide dynamic range power measurements
(e.g., from a log receiver). The coherent signal-to-noise power is the area
78

under the signal portion of the power spectrum divided by the total noise
power (S/N). It can be calculated directly from the spectrum, or using the
measured autocorrelations. Similarly, the spectrum width itself can be used
as an indicator of the accuracy of the Doppler mean velocity and spectrum
width.
Both a low coherent signal-to-noise ratio and a large spectrum width
contribute to a large variance in the velocity and width estimators.
Ideally, thresholding should be made at a constant variance level, e.g.,
velocity is accepted if it's expected error is less than 1 m/s.
Unfortunately the relationship that governs the effect of SNR and width on

the variance of the velocity estimator is not a simple one (Zrnic, 1977b),
hence it is usually not implemented as a real time thresholding criterion.
Instead, the typical approach is to use either the coherent SNR and/or the
width separately and adjust the threshold until the displays are reasonably

free of speckles.
A popular measure of the quality of velocity and width estimates, which
accounts for the effects of both the coherent SNR and the spectral width is

the normalized first lagged autocorrelation magnitude IR(1)|/R(O).

easily computed,

conveniently

bounded

between

0 and

It is

and thresholds

unreliable estimates reasonably well.

The measured

clutter-to-signal ratio

(CSR) is often calculated for the

purpose of correcting the log receiver power for the effects of clutter.
When the actual CSR exceeds the dynamic range capabilities of the receiver

or the ability of the clutter filter to accurately remove clutter, then the
data should be discarded.

The calculated CSR can then be used as the

thresholding criterion.
Another method of thresholding range bins that are affected by clutter is to

simply not display bins that have a mean velocity within a narrow band about
zero velocity. This technique is effective for Doppler radars that have no
clutter filter, or Doppler radars of limited linear dynamic range available
for

cancelling

clutter.

Both

the velocity
79

and reflectivity

can be

thresholded using this criterion. Unfortunately, any weather that falls

into the threshold velocity band is also rejected.
Simple geometric considerations can be used for thresholding data that are

not physically reasonable. A very simple threshold is to eliminate all data

that are above a fixed height where weather echoes are assured not to occur,
e.g., 20 km. Another threshold that is easily implemented in a processor is

a "speckle remover" that eliminates all isolated range bins that have no
nearest neighbors in range or azimuth. Use of a speckle remover eliminates
aircraft and point clutter targets. It also allows other thresholds to be
set to lower values for greater sensitivity since only double speckles will

be passed.
Finally, statistical criteria involve considerations of local continuity and

rejection of data that are a few standard deviations away from local mean
values.

Strauch,

et

al.

(1984) utilize

a very

effective

"consensus

averaging" technique (Fischler and Bolles, 1981) to delete wild points or

outliers for time domain integration of wind profiler processing. One or
two dimensional median filtering techniques also allows deletion of
individual or isolated groups of anomalous data.
The application of thresholding requires caution.
One common problem
develops when a linear channel index is used to threshold both the velocity
and the reflectivity. If this is done it is not uncommon to observe "black
holes" of rejected reflectivity echo (so called if the display background is
black). These often occur in regions of large shear or turbulence such as
thunderstorm cores (Hjelmfelt, et al., 1981) where there is ample
reflectivity present.
This points out that different threshold
combinations, and perhaps threshold levels, should be used for the different
spectral moments. For example, an acceptable threshold for velocity will
generally not be appropriate for spectrum width since spectrum width
requires a stronger signal for proper estimation.

80

7.
7.1

IN SIGNAL PROCESSING

ITREND

REALIZATIC[N FACT

Several key components comprise a realizable signal processing system-chips, memory, and a large bandwidth output device. This digital technology
has found wide applications in modern radars (Rabinowitz, et al., 1985).

7.1.1

Digital signal processr chips

In the last 5 years integrated circuit chips specially optimized for digital

signal

(DSP)

processor
and

memory,

the

operations
logic

supporting

multiply-accumulate, on-chip

such as
have

developed

exceeding hardwired processors of several years ago.

computational

power

These DSP chips are

installed

on

commercially available high speed busses, such as VME and Multibus II.

As

available

from

variety

of

and

manufacturers

can

be

integrated circuit developments in memory continue, on-chip memory will

expand

to

allow

caching

and

make

DSP

algorithm's

more

efficient.

Interconnectability using multiple fast busses and fast communication ports

still allow full implementations of many DSP algorithms. The commercial
availability of families of DSP chips and busses provides documentation,
technical support, and probable upgrades for faster and compatible
processing speed.
Current 32 bit DSP chips are based on silicon technology (TTL and CMOS)

and

can achieve clock rates of tens of MHz and execution rates of a few Million
Instructions Per Second (MIPS). The next generation of microprocessor and
DSP chips will be fabricated from gallium arsenide (GaAs) and will allow
several processors to be attached to a single chip component. Clock rates
for these advanced devices will be a few hundred MHz with instruction rates

exceeding 100 MIPS. This technology is growing rapidly. However, within

the next several years the number of components per chip will be limited by
fabrication processes and shortly thereafter by physical constraints within
the chip itself (Aliphas and Feldman, 1987).

81

An important factor that will allow rapid expansion of radar processing

power is the trend of D6P chip manufacturers to develop higher performance

chips that are compatible with previous versions. Thus, a relatively simple
redesign of the processor board using the same basic architecture, combined
with reprogrammed algorithms, offers greatly enhanced processing power at
low cost.
The ready availability of the processing power obviates a move towards more

real time processing.

For example, as multi-parameter radars and faster

scanning radars evolve, more processing power will be necessary to compute

the quality-checked, auto-edited data that is so valuable to real time

observations.
The real time processing can perform all the "signal
processing" plus an increasing amount of the "data processing" tasks.

7.1.2 Storage media

External devices for mass storage have long been dominated by magnetic tape.

The half inch tape is the standard, but various other tape-based media and
technologies are being explored. These include special high density tapes
such as NCAR's obsolete TBM (terra-bit memory), magnetic tape cartridges,
video cassettes, and the digital audio tape (DAT) devices using helical scan
technology.
All of these tape storage media suffer from serial access
delays and are undesirable for on line, fast access storage. However, they
are extremely well suited for "write-once" archiving applications such as
radar data acquisition. Storage capacities of two or more gigabytes can be
achieved today. Higher capacity and faster transfer rates will continue to
evolve. Winchester disks using "vertical recording" techniques allow high
density and fast access and fit many applications which require fast, random

access storage.
The thrust in storage media development now seems to be in optical recording

techniques.

Compact disk (CD) technology, being a consumer product, has

become relatively inexpensive.
The data capacity of optical media is
approaching several Gbytes on a 5.25" CD and data transfer rates of several

Mbytes/sec are possible.

millisecond range.

Random access times are being reduced to the

82

7.1.3

Display technology

Real time color radar displays have become an important component of remote

sensor technology since their first implementation by Gray, et al. (1975).

Intensity modulated PPI and RHI scopes show high resolution reflectivity
displays, but digital color displays show all the directly measured
variables (e.g., velocity) as well as derived variables such as differential
reflectivity, phase, and depolarization quantities.
Plotting data from
multiple sensors in real time, zooming into specific areas of interest,
generating time lapsed images, and defining special overlays provides a
measure of flexibility not available only a few years ago. Special purpose
programmable graphics processors allow these new, yet fairly simple, image
processing capabilities. The next generation of graphics processors will
accommodate 3 dimensional real time image generation, color images with

transparency, easily manipulated images to change the viewing angle, and

programmability in high level languages to allow a high degree of user
interaction. The display is the investigator's or the user's contact to the
environment being studied or watched. Particular emphasis should be placed
on this aspect of the remote sensor to extract its maximum utility.

7.1.4 omrmercial radar processors

Radar processors have historically been developed by the organization
responsible for the entire remote sensor system. Recently, however, digital
signal processors have become commercially available as special purpose
computers for Doppler lidars (Bilbro, et al., 1984), and weather radars
(Siggia, 1981; Chandra, et al., 1986, and Schroth, et al., 1988).
The
specialized processing algorithms being developed and applied to atmospheric

remote sensors can be efficiently integrated into many types of remote

sensors and customized to the specific application by different software.
System

engineering

improvements

in

of

signal

hardware

processors

technology

and

is

changing

architectures

because

(Allen,

of

the

1985).

However, the biggest change is occurring because of changes in the system

engineering methodology.

Open software standards for operating systems

83

(e.g., POSIX), for computer language (e.g., ANSII standards, Ada, etc.),
run-time environments

(e.g., X-OPEN) are being developed and applied.

bus standards,

VME)

(e.g.,

are being clarified,

board and peripheral manufacturers.

and
Data

updated and adhered to by

Open software standards and workable

data bus standards facilitate cost-effective development and manufacture of

special signal processing boards that integrate and can be upgraded to the
latest

DSP chip sets.

7.2

IREN1&S IN I

The

new generation

sensors

EGRA4TBILr[TY OF DSP
of digital

is programmable.

processors

in

which

signal processors

for atmospheric

remote

This is a marked contrast to early hardwired

the

algorithms

could

be modified

only

with

great

difficulty and most often resulting in the loss of the original capability.
Programmable

processors

allow

algorithm

modifications,

processing

experiments, diagnostic testing, and system testing while still retaining

the capability of returning to a pre-existing mode of operation.

Modern

digital filtering and waveform processing using advanced algorithms is now

possible without the constraints imposed by physical limitations of hardware

devices.

Schmidt,

programmable

signal

et

al.

(1979)

processors

and Woodman,

for VHF

et

al.

Doppler wind

(1980) describe

profilers.

These

present day DSP systems are directly programmable in modern languages, such
as "C".

Advanced processing algorithms using matrix methods, such as singular value

decomposition, orthogonalization, multichannel optimization techniques, and
non-linear

processing

algorithms

using

adaptive

and

data

compression

techniques (Haykin, 1985a; Kay, 1987; Marple, 1987) can be coded and tested
on

line

in

real

implementation.
be modified.

As

destroying

the

original

algorithm

Optimization may become an easier task.

easier

algorithms,

without

Standard algorithms can be as easily replaced as they can

the DSP chips

becomes

time,

for

support

to

higher

achieve.

example

in

level languages,

Reproducability
a

radar

network,

of
is

algorithm portability
clone

processors

feasible.

and

However,

programmable hardware leads to a new set of development and maintenance

84

A higher level of training and maintenance equipment is

problems.
for

trouble-shooting

radar

malfunctioning

required
level

Board

processor.

Programmability

maintenance may require a more expensive spare inventory.

brings new headaches as well as many new features.

Another area of rapid development important to distributed signal processor

architectures

is

the

application

of

multiprocessor

operating

systems.

Distributed computing power on a common high speed bus requires an operating

system capable of controlling data transfers and bus arbitration and memory
Presently these operating systems are targeted towards more

management.

purpose

general

processor chips

(e.g., the Motorola

68030),

but

application will find them on distributed DSP processors as well.

future

Software

development is a key issue in generating efficient realizations of the DSP

algorithms.

UNIX is presently becoming accepted as the common operating

system of choice for many applications programs and for development of real
time software, which then typically run under a UNIX compatible real time
operating system (e.g., VxWorks, PDOS).

7.3

SHIOR

TERM EXPECCTATICNS

During the next 5 years we may expect a revolution in atmospheric digital

signal processor technology.

However, this technology will tend to leave

the atmospheric science community behind unless we prepare ourselves to take

advantage of the evolving hardware and software advances.
the pulse pair processor for over a decade.

We have lived by

Other techniques have been

explored that in same instances provide better parameter estimates but have
not been feasible to implement in the past.

This constraint is rapidly

disappearing.
7.3.1

Rarge/velocity ambiguities

Within the next 2 or

implement

new

dealiasing.

pulsing

3 years we may expect several research groups to

and

processing

schemes

for

and

range

velocity

These schemes, driven by the FAA's Terminal Doppler Weather

Radar (TDWR) procurement, as well as the Nexrad implementations, will allow

ground

clutter

overlaid

echo

suppression
suppression

simultaneously
algorithms.
85

with
There

velocity dealiasing
will

be

exploration

and
of

polarization processing improvements combined with resolving range and

velocity ambiguities and clutter suppression.
7.3.2 Ground clutter filtering
Effective clutter filtering will be readily implemented on conventional
Doppler radars.
However, efforts to integrate clutter suppression with
other processing improvements will likely encounter several technical
obstacles involving analog components (e.g., polarization switches, IF
amplifiers, and transmitter instabilities). Fundamental limitations related
to the narrow clutter spectra may well limit clutter suppression for radars
using dwell times shorter than the clutter correlation time. Yet to be
explored nonlinear filtering techniques may allow effective suppression even
under these conditions.
7.3.3 Waveforms for fast scanning radars
A major limitation of existing Doppler meteorological radars is their
inability to scan a solid angle in space fast enough to measure a rapidly
evolving atmospheric event with adequate temporal resolution. A dwell time
of a few milliseconds is desired. The proper long term solution requires an
electronically scanned phased array antenna -

a very expensive item.

The

mechanical solution of simply scanning faster and using short dwell times is

insufficient to preserve the parameter measurement accuracy. Scan rates

greater than about 100 degrees per second for a 1 beamwidth cause spectrum
spreading due to antenna motion that rapidly degrades the measurement
accuracy. A reasonable alternative is to rapidly scan mechanically at a
rate such that the spectrum spread is not dominated by the scan induced
component and to use a wideband waveform (pulse compression or multiple
frequency) that allows a reasonably large number of independent parameter
estimates to be made in the short dwell time imposed by the coherence time

of the return signal. Some research groups are testing short dwell time
waveforms (Keeler and Frush, 1983b; Strauch, 1988) on both airborne and
ground-based weather radars.

86

7.3.4

Data cmpression

Data compression algorithms are an important aspect of signal processing.

Data compression can be divided into two classes -- "truncation" for any
range gates at altitudes

greater than the tropopause

encoding"

or

for strings

Typically

parameter

"compaction"

estimates

not

and

"run length

of data having the same value.

passing

arbitrarily set to zero and run length encoded.

some

threshold

test

are

Data truncation will become

more common as programmable processors are installed.

7.3.5

Artificial intelligence

ased feature extraction

Future computing will be directed at enhancing man's analytical and

inferential skills, rather than routine physical or mental activities.
Symbolic programming techniques combined with knowledge engineering and
artificial intelligence techniques show potential for rapid advance; the
same is true for meteorological image processing and automated recognition
and extraction of atmospheric features. Two dimensional signal and image
processing algorithms will be implemented using programming architectures,
reducing development time and extracting more meteorological information
from remote sensor data sets.
7.3.6 Real time 3D weather image processing
Relatively new computing hardware allows ready implementations of various
symbolic object processing systems that can be applied to problems in
atmospheric science. Coupled with fast graphics processors we can expect
real time 3D images produced with the latest image rendering techniques
which allow reconstructed radar data fields overlaid with in-situ
measurements

from

airborne

and ground

based meteorological

stations.

Graphics computers with large video memories allow time lapsing of high
resolution 3D images and arbitrary cross sections to be displayed using a
variety of techniques currently being developed.
Transparency of data
elements near the viewer allows observation of the storm interior.

7.4

IDNG TERM EXPECIATICNS

Several years from now we can expect revolutionary changes in the way signal
processing will increase our ability to understand atmospheric dynamics in
87

real time.
Combining new hardware forms and more efficient software
development techniques with evolving communications technology and the
tumbling cost of computing power will allow remote sensor systems to present

readily assimilated graphical formats.

These systems will provide an

interactive user interface taking forms that are only dreamed about today.

For example, tactile feedback technology will allow a meteorologist to

manually pick up a "thunderstorm" and manipulate it to better examine the
evolving towers and outflows.
7.4.1

Advance hardware
The present development of GaAs (gallium arsenide) computing elements may
replace silicon dominated chips if the promised five fold speed increases
and higher reliability in thermal and radiation extremes are realized.

7.4.2

Optical interconnects and processing

Fiber optical communication is capable of extremely high bandwidth. Data

rates and parallel processing using optical techniques can accommodate
processing algorithms having throughput many orders of magnitude higher than

serial and most existing parallel digital signal processing schemes.

optic back planes for computers are available now.
7.4.3

Fiber

Ctumunicatians

Processing of atmospheric radar signals has many concepts in common with

communications processing and the same technologies can be incorporated. By
logically combining the processing functions with the communications link,
both locally and over long distance, new capabilities will be possible.
7.4.4

Electronically scanned array antennas

Military budgets have financed the development of highly efficient, very low

sidelobe,

multiple

beam, two

dimensional

electronically

scanned

array

antennas. The computing power necessary to control the beams is available

but the communications to each array element, the phase shifters capable of
handling high peak powers for radar systems, and the sheer number of
elements required (several thousand) are very costly. These step scan
antennas will allow more rapid volume coverage while retaining parameter
88

accuracy and will reduce the deleterious effects of antenna sidelobes.

The

very

for

high

cost

of

this

performance

increase

must

be

justified

atmospheric radar applications.

7.4.5
Self

Adaptive systems
learning,

time variable processing

optimization that is

not possible today.

systems will

allow a

degree

of

Neural networking concepts utilize

interconnected arrays of processing elements which share the processing and

communications
maximized.

load

so

that

the

The algorithms used in

overall

computational

efficiency

is

these adaptive systems can be defined by

a training sequence or can be self learning during the processing time.

Research

is concentrating on integrating distributed processing concepts

with expected hardware.

89

8.
8.1

CoNCrI3SIONS

ASSESSMENT OF CUR PAST

Radar signal processing engineers, in the meteorological radar community at

least, have taken a somewhat narrow view of signal processing in the past.
A large effort has been dedicated to using the pulse pair algorithm for

estimating the first two or three spectral moments, largely because the
existing processing power has been rather limited to these simple algorithms

and because for an important class of signals the pulse pair algorithm is
optimum. Advances have been made in the ST/MST radar community in pulse
compression, coherent averaging, and non-linear least squares parameter
fitting techniques, and in the lidar community in multiple lag processing.
Other techniques have been ignored or rejected simply because the scientific

need for these advances did not exist, or if it did, the risk of undertaking
such a development was not warranted.
The operational radar community and many researchers have been unable to
explore weak echoes because of inadequate sensitivity. There are better ways

of improving radar sensitivity than brute force techniques of more power and
larger antennas. Advanced signal processing techniques must be explored
more thoroughly to achieve these sensitivity gains.
Modern spectrum
analysis methods for modeling distributed target echoes in strong clutter
and multi-channel processing techniques to extract better information from
collections of remote sensors is an area ripe for extensive research.

The digital boundaries of the signal processor are being extended in both
directions. Digital IF quadrature mixers are presently available which will
accept IF and local oscillator analog signals and put out digitized I and Q
samples.

Digital matched filters operating at IF rather than baseband (DC)

will became a reality.

The radar engineering community is ready to
integrate these new components where warranted.

91

8.2

RECEMMENDATIONS

R CU

FOR RE

Aside from continuing to actively explore many of the modern signal

processing techniques, there are two general recommendations we would
encourage for utilizing modern signal processing algorithms.
First, many universities have active digital signal processing groups in the

Electrical Engineering departments and many industries have vast experience

in radar signal processing techniques. Our research community should strive
to interact more strongly with these two on an international scale. The
university cooperative education programs should be explored and encouraged.
University exchange programs involving signal processing experts as well as

meteorologists should be encouraged.

Industrial contacts with radar
manufacturers and systems producers, such as NEXRAD and TDWR should be
maintained so as to exchange signal processing expertise as well as
meteorological expertise.
Second, the meteorological radar community should maintain the lead in
sponsoring signal processing sessions at AMS radar conferences and sponsor
participation in other signal processing related meetings. Members of the
ST/MST radar and coherent lidar communities should be encouraged to attend

these sessions (and vice versa) since our target models, our propagation
medium, our processing problems, and our techniques are nearly identical.
As noted before members of these communities have successfully explored
modern algorithms and predated weather radars use of the pulse pair and poly
pulse pair velocity estimators as well as use of pulse compression and
complementary coding schemes.
Finally, as R.W. Lee of the Signal Processing panel stated once, we can now
build processors with "megaflops to burn". We can use them very easily by
implementing new processing algorithms, for example, using a priori
knowledge to improve estimates. Computing special diagnostic outputs which
have no bearing on the data collected, but simply allow the operator to
adjust processing parameters, is an effective use of processing power.

92

8.3

ACCEPiANCE OF NEW TECHNIQUES

New techniques are not usually accepted easily by any scientific community.
Twenty years ago, Doppler processing using the now standard pulse pair
estimator was not readily accepted.

Why should any new signal processing

algorithms using only statistical concepts improve the accuracy of moment

estimates?

Skepticism is healthy in science.

Accepting a new technique

requires four critical conditions:

1.

An important application, a problem which needs to be solved.

2.

An intuitive, familiar basis for understanding the concepts involved in

the new technique, which includes a convenient interface for exploring

the innards of the new technique.
3.

A field demonstration to convince the community that the new technique

is indeed an improvement over the former.

4.

Real, live funding for development and demonstration.

8.4

ACKNoICMrEDGMENT

The authors wish to thank the panel members for their verbal and written
contributions to this report.
helpful with comments

D. Zrnic and R. Serafin have been especially

on various drafts.

V. Chandrasekar, J. Evans, G.

Gray, J. Klostermeyer, F. Pratte, R. Strauch, R. Wiesenberg,

and R. Woodman

and have provided helpful written comments that have been incorporated into
this signal processing review.

J. Devine provided expert assistance with

integrating the text, the figures, and the references.

93

ACIHNYM isr

A/D

analog to digital

AGC

automatic gain control

CNR

clutter to noise ratio

CSR

clutter to signal ratio

DFT

discrete Fourier transform

DSP

digital signal processor

FFT

fast Fourier transform

FIR

finite impulse response

FM-CW -

frequency modulated continuous wave

IIR

infinite impulse response

IF

intermediate frequency

I/Q

in-phase / quadrature

IMS

least mean square

ME

maximum entropy

ML

maximum likelihood

PRF

pulse repetition frequency

PRT

pulse repetition times

SNR

signal to noise ratio

95

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