Observational Consistency Comparison and Analyses of an X-Band Solid-State Radar and an X-Band Klystron Doppler Radar

Solid-state weather radar transmitters offer great potential for increased reliability and maintainability, which have been proven to be critical for practical use. Although they have been implemented in radar systems, solid-state transmitters are incapable of producing as high peak power as available in klystrons. The pulse compression technique coupled with mismatched methods allows for low peak-power transmission and can improve the range-resolution and detection performance on the receiving end of a radar system. However, applying solid-state transmitters with pulse compression in weather radar systems still requires strong evidence for data reliability. With side-by-side observational experiments, this study compares a solid-state weather radar with the combined-pulse transmission mode to a close-by klystron Doppler weather radar in an attempt to 1) analyze the capability of the solid-state radar to reduce the near-range blind zone and 2) validate the quality and reliability of data from a solid-state radar that is implemented with the pulse compression technique. The data from the klystron Doppler weather radar are considered accurate and are used as a reference for quantitatively evaluating the solid-state radar data quality and reliability. Comparisons and statistics show that the observations from the solid-state radar are consistent with that from the klystron Doppler weather radar, especially in heavy rainfall. Results from the analysis indicate that the solid-state weather radar has high estimation accuracy in both near and far ranges.