Title: Technology Development for a Wide-swath Shared-aperture Cloud Radar (WiSCR)
Presenting Author: Lihua Li
Organization: NASA GSFC
Co-Author(s): Matthew McLinden, Paul E. Racette, Gerald M. Heymsfield - NASA GSFC;
Peter A. Stenger, Thomas Spence, Michael E. Cooley, Mike Folk, Richard E Park - Northrop Grumman Mission Systems

Abstract:
The primary objective of this ESTO IIP project is to advance key enabling technologies for a tri-frequency (Ku/Ka/W-band) Wide-swath Shared-aperture Cloud-precipitation Radar (WiSCR). This radar is capable of providing unprecedented, simultaneous multi-frequency measurements that will enhance our understanding of clouds, precipitation, and their interaction on Earth climate change. WiSCR utilizes a parabolic cylinder aperture along with the innovative reflector/reflectarray technology and active electronically scanned array (AESA) line feeds at Ku and Ka-band to achieve wide swath (>120 km) imaging at these frequencies. At W-band, the radar design is compatible with either a focused nadir beam or cross-track scanning beam. The reflectarray technology enables co-located multi-frequency beams and thus reduces the loss and beam alignment error due to displacement of the feeds from the common focal position. To date, research effort has been focused on concept design and trade studies of the tri-frequency shared-aperture antenna, advancing the development of the Ka-band AESA transmit/receive (T/R) module and development of the advanced radar backend electronics. This presentation will describe progress on these tasks including design, fabrication and test of the Ka-band GaN high power amplifier MMIC, the LNA and switch MMIC, the multi-function control and T/R MMICs, the integrated circulator , the gate/power control ASIC, the integrated module package, development of the prototype Multi-channel Frequency Conversion Module (MFCM) and evaluation of the Frequency Diversity Pulse Pair technique.