Jose D. Diaz

Phased Array Radar (PAR) technology is rapidly rising as a candidate for future weather radars because it can provide focused, high-quality meteorological observations. Due to the need for precise measurements of polarimetric weather variables, it is desired that the radar simultaneously transmits and receives linearly polarized horizontal (H) and vertical (V) fields through beams that are well matched in gain and shape at every pointing direction. These scanning characteristics are difficult to achieve, especially with current methods such as the “park and probe” calibration, because the radiation patterns of PAR antennas are inherently dependent on their pointing direction. Thus, polarimetric array calibration is critical to produce matched H/V copolar antenna patterns. In this article, we present a polarimetric antenna calibration procedure for the fully-digital PARs based on the holographic back-projection of electric fields. The fully digital S-band Horus radar is used to implement and evaluate the proposed calibration method. First, near-field measurements of a fully active Horus antenna panel are back-projected onto the plane of the array to derive the copolar magnitude and phase of the H/V fields radiated by each antenna element. Then, digital calibration parameters are produced from back-projected fields to compensate for excitation differences and produce uniform radiation at the plane of the array. The performance of the back-projection calibration method is evaluated for broadside and for electronically scanned angles and compared to the more conventional park and probe calibration method. A robustness analysis is conducted using simulations to evaluate the impact of excitation amplitude and phase errors that could result from practical near-field environments and amplifier performance degradation. Preliminary results show that through precise digital calibration based on back-projected fields, beam matching can be significantly improved to achieve the desired polarimetric calibration levels. For electronically steered beams, back-projection calibration can reduce H/V beam mismatch biases by approximately 25%, from 0.34 dB to 0.08 dB. This improves measurement accuracy of fully digital PARs by mitigating antenna-induced biases in meteorological estimates.

This contribution presents the results of a dual-polarized radiating element designed to achieve low cross-polarization (lower than -40 dB measured for the E-and H-plane, at least -30 dB in the D-plane based on simulations) and large fractional bandwidth (18%) over wide scanning angles (±60°). The proposed design includes multiple features that enable high isolation between ports, reduction of spurious radiation, highly symmetrical radiated fields, and suppression of diffracted fields between contiguous subarray gaps. To verify the polarimetric requirements for a weather radar, simulated and measured results, including electronic scanning of the array and embedded element patterns of the antenna, are shown.

With the growing interest in polarization diversity in communications and radar systems, the use of Ludwig's second and third definitions has become controversial among scientists and antenna engineers. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to clarify some of the ambiguity and confusion caused by these definitions. A detailed comparison of Ludwig's second and thirrd definitions of cross polarization, as applied to linearly polarized antennas, was performed. The results show that, in the diagonal plane, Ludwig's second definition leads to a lower crosspolarization level than the third definition for x- or y-polarized current sources. For a Huygens source, by Ludwig's third definition, the radiation pattern has a lower cross-polarization level than that obtained by Ludwig's second definition. For some applications, the antenna is usually placed in the yz plane. Therefore, new polarization bases are proposed according to which the source is used as a reference, and also on how this source is oriented in the yz plane. To complement the theoretical framework demonstrated in this contribution and to provide readers with a better and simpler understanding of the crosspolarization definition, the analysis of several practical antennas for diverse applications was presented. Numerical and measured radiation patterns of wire and printed dipoles, rectangular patch, pyramidal horn, and open-ended rectangular waveguide (OEWG) antennas were investigated according to the polarization formulations presented in this paper. In addition, a dual-polarized element and a dual-polarized active phased array at broadside were utilized to generalize the application.

This paper examines the impact of diffracted fields on the cross-polarization performance of finite array antennas. The investigation included the calculation, simulation and measurement of several antenna prototypes with different element positions and different ground planes sizes. Characterization of the induced cross-polarization in a finite array with discontinusities in the ground plane was also performed. Excellent agreement between simulations and the actual measurements of eight antenna prototypes were obtained. The results demonstrated that the cross-polarization of the antenna elements in the array can be significantly impacted by the diffracted fields of the external and internal edges or discontinuities.