Design and performance assessment of an airborne ice sounding radar front-end

The paper describes the design and experimental performance assessment of the RF front-end of an airborne P-band ice sounding radar. The ice sounder design features newly developed components at a centre frequency of 435 MHz, such as, antenna 20% bandwidth at RL < 13 dB, compact high power in-pha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2008 Microwaves, Radar and Remote Sensing Symposium pp. 284 - 288
Main Authors Hernandez, C.C., Krozer, V., Vidkjaer, J., Dall, J.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.09.2008
Subjects
Airborne radar
Antenna accessories
Bandwidth
Frequency conversion
High power amplifiers
Ice
Power dividers
Radar antennas
Radio frequency
Switches
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Summary:The paper describes the design and experimental performance assessment of the RF front-end of an airborne P-band ice sounding radar. The ice sounder design features newly developed components at a centre frequency of 435 MHz, such as, antenna 20% bandwidth at RL < 13 dB, compact high power in-phase and out-of-phase power dividers with a relative bandwidth of 20% and more than 75 W CW power handling, high power SPDT PIN switch with 90 W CW power handling and a 70 W CW high efficiency LDMOS power amplifier with >60% power-added efficiency. The system comprises also a digital signal generator, a digital front-end and a control unit. The system was functionally tested in March 2008 and had a first successful proof-of-concept campaign in Greenland in May 2008.
ISBN:9781424426881
142442688X
DOI:10.1109/MRRS.2008.4669596