Weather Radar High-Resolution Spectral Moment Estimation Using Bidirectional Extreme Learning Machine

Since the performance of the spectral moment estimation algorithm commonly used in engineering degrades under the conditions of low SNR, this paper introduces the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) to the spectral moment estimation of weather signals based on the correlation of the signals of adjacent range cells. To solve the problem that the hidden layer nodes of ELM algorithm are difficult to be determined, the Bidirectional Extreme Learning Machine (B-ELM) algorithm is applied to achieve the high resolution of spectral moments. Firstly, to improve the SNR of the training samples, time-domain pulse signals are converted into weather power spectrum by Welch method. Then, the parameters of the B-ELM hidden layer nodes are directly calculated by backpropagation of network residuals. The model parameters are optimized according to the least-squares solution, where the optimal number of hidden layer nodes is determined adaptively. Finally, the optimized B-ELM model is employed for the spectral moment estimation of weather signals. The algorithm is validated to be fast and accurate for spectral moment estimation using the measured IDRA weather radar data and is easy to implement in engineering. © 2024, Electromagnetics Academy. All rights reserved.