A Software-Defined Radar Platform for Waveform Design

In this work, a transportable, dual-polarization X-band radar was developed at the Atmospheric Radar Research Center (ARRC) at the University of Oklahoma (OU). The system has been completed and used to produce some preliminary results using two in-housed developed solid-state amplifiers. The system uses a 1.2-m parabolic reflector dish, which provides a 1.8 degrees beamwdith. Major components are housed on an azimuth-over-elevation pedestal. Long transmit pulse length is utilized to compensate for the relatively low-peak power output of the transmitter while pulse compression techniques is used to recover range resolution and sensitivity.