RADAR CALIBRATION

SOME SIMPLE APPROACHES

BY

DAVID ATLAS

In considering new and promising methods to calibrate radar, it is worth remembering some of the old and perhaps forgotten methods that were used over the last half century.

uring the Radar Calibration Workshop at the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Meteo` rological Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in January 2001, I was surprised at the relatively little attention given to some of the simplest and proven methods. This stimulated some extemporaneous remarks that I presented toward the end of the work-

AFFILIATION: ATLASNASA Goddard Space Flight Center,

Greenbelt, Maryland
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: David Atlas, Distinguished Visiting Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 910, Greenbelt, MD 20771 E-mail: datlas@radar.gsfc.nasa.gov In final form 22 May 2002 2002 American Meteorological Society

shop. While formalizing these remarks in writing I thought it would be useful to elaborate upon them and discuss some newer approaches. Thus this paper attempts to synthesize a range of techniques. A common thread that runs throughout is the calibration of the overall system by use of standard or well-defined targets external to the radar. In part, I was troubled by the apparent lack of familiarity of some of the younger generation with early activities in this realm. I was also reacting to the recent findings of the variability in the calibrations of the Weather Surveillance Radars-1988 Doppler (WSR-88Ds) around the nation that have been uncovAbove: In the early 1970s, Atlas used BBs to calibrate the vertically pointing frequency modulatedcontinuous wave (FM-CW) radar.
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ered by comparison with the radar measurements of precipitation by the radar on board the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM); (Bolen and Chandrasekar 2000). The remarkable stability of the TRMM precipitation radar has made it a traveling standard against which ground-based weather radars can be calibrated. There were a few papers presented at the workshop that resorted to the more traditional methods such as calibration with a standard target. David Brunkow of Colorado State University spoke about the use of a metal sphere. Ron Rinehart of the University of North Dakota used an oscillating dihedral corner reflector. Also Isztar Zawadzki recounted his work with rain gauges and a JossWaldvogel (JW) disdrometer. Surely, few of the participants were aware that the early workers in Canada (Stewart Marshall, Bob Langille, and Walter Palmer) and in my group at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (Vernon Plank, Al Chmela, and I) used filter papers powdered with Gentian violet dye (which left purple stains on our clothes and teeth) to measure the sizes of tens of thousands of drops by hand in the late 1940s and early 1950s (Hitschfeld 1986). Oh what a blessing it was to display the drop size distribution in a comfortable laboratory , while the J W disdrometer was observing the size of each drop automatically outdoors. Historically, it was the Weather Radar Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), under the leadership of Alan Bemis and the seminal work by Polly Austin and Ed Williams (1951), that found the large underestimates of the radar echoes from gauge measurements of rain in comparison to the then-available theory. It was this difference that motivated Richard Probert-Jones (1962) in England to formulate the proper radar equation for meteorological scatterers (Hitschfeld 1986). For almost a decade we all struggled to understand the source of this discrepancy. And here we are today still struggling with the optimum methods of radar calibration. CALIBRATION METHODS. Frequency shift reflector (FSR). The FSR was invented by John Chisholm (1963). It has been used mainly as a ground-based target for precise locations on airports and geographical siting. It employs a parabolic reflector with a horn at the focus that is shorted by a diode at a frequency f (e.g., 30 or 60 MHz). The frequency f is generated by a battery-driven modulator. The echo from the target is returned at F f, where F is the transmitted frequency. The echoes at f are exactly 6 dB below that corresponding to the known cross section of the an1314 |
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tenna. These frequencies are readily distinguished from ground clutter and precipitation echoes. It is an excellent calibration device because it is always available regardless of the weather. BBs. We first used BBs fired vertically from a BB pistol as standard targets to calibrate the vertically pointing frequency modulated-continuous wave (FM-CW) radar at the Naval Electronics Laboratory Center at Point Loma, California (Stratmann et al. 1971). After having failed to support a calibration sphere from a balloon in a stable position on the axis of the radar beam we searched for another approach. In a joking manner I suggested the use of a BB gun. Although there was no prior literature on the subject it was cheap, straightforward, and worth a try. We were very pleased by how well it worked. If enough BBs are used (one at a time), the statistics of echo strength mimic the radiation pattern of the beam. The maximum echo corresponds to the antenna gain on the beam axis. When using a conventional radar, one should tilt the beam close to the horizon outside the region of ground clutter. With Doppler radar, the Doppler shift can be used to distinguish the moving BBs from clutter. Metalized Ping-Pong balls. This is an extension of the BB method. One can fly a light aircraft across and above a fixed radar beam and drop the balls sequentially at about 1015 m intervals so that only one target is in the beam at any time. The metalized balls are good targets of known radar cross section. The successive echoes present a quantitative measure of the antenna pattern. Tracking of the aircraft and timing of each drop positions each target relative to the maximum echo on the beam axis. The PingPong balls are cheap and nonhazardous. One may also use metalized wiffle balls (with holes in them). The idea is to prevent either type of ball from falling fast enough to create a hazard. Note that either of these types of balls may be within the Mie region depending on the radar wavelength so that their cross sections should be computed carefully. It is also possible to release such targets sequentially from a bucket carried on a constant-level balloon moving with the winds perpendicular to the fixed radar beam. A similar method was used to measure the cross section of a free-falling artificial hailstone released from a balloon and measured by a tracking radar (Willis et al. 1964). Airborne modulated target. This approach combines the concepts in the frequency shift reflector (FSR) and

Standard Target Radar (STADAR; Atlas 1967). STADAR employs a rotating standard target on the aircraft that modulated the total echo of the aircraft and the target at a frequency corresponding to the rotation frequency. The original idea was aimed at using a simple CW radar to detect the range to the target by the intensity of the echo from the rotating target of known cross section using the radar equation to compute the range. However, it would be greatly improved by using an FSR on board the aircraft so that the echo is returned at a frequency that is different from that of the carrier frequency and thus separated from the aircraft echoes. Balloon-borne or airborne standard target. This is an old scheme that must go back to World War II. However, we first used it in 1953 when we suspended a metalized sphere below a helicopter and carried it across the beam of our 24-GHz radar in a study of the radar characteristics of fog (Atlas et al. 1953). That study was aimed at determining the relationship of the radar reflectivity to the liquid water content and drop sizes of fog. Many others have used this method but found it difficult to track the target in a narrow beam. At the present time the use of the global positioning system (GPS), either on the balloon or the airplane, would facilitate tracking. Calibration with a 24-in. metal sphere suspended from a balloon was done quite reliably by Atlas and Mossop (1960) by tracking the balloon with a long, easily identified tail by theodolite. Today one might mount a television camera on the bore sight axis of the antenna and use the wide angle lens to find the balloon and then change to telephoto mode to find it accurately and adjust the radar position accordingly. Metalized spherical target released from aircraft. During experiments at Wallops Island, Virginia, to measure the cross sections of individual insects and birds, the latter targets were released from an aircraft flying into the wind while being tracked by the radar (Glover et al. 1966). The targets were released on countdown and the tracking gate was stopped until the aircraft moved out of the gate and the unknown target could be gated and tracked. Then the aircraft moved upwind while the target moved downwind. This approach requires the use of a tracking radar that can control the weather radar. A metalized spherical, constantaltitude balloon can be released from the aircraft and expanded upon release by the use of a gas cartridge. Tethered balloon or kytoon. Many investigators have used metal spheres of known cross section suspended
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from tethered balloons or kytoons. Some have used three tethers to stabilize the position of the balloon. During experiments in England we used a tethered balloon with a standard 12 in. diameter metal sphere and an ice ball (i.e., a simulated hailstone) of unknown cross section suspended below the balloon at a sufficient vertical spacing to separate the known and unknown targets. Swinging the beam from one to the other allowed us to measure the cross section of the simulated hailstone with accuracy of better than ~0.5 dB. This was more easily done at the time because of the use of relatively wide beam height-finder radars such as the MPS-4 and the TPS-10 (Atlas et al. 1960). For greater use it is best to do this in the light winds of early morning or evening. Use of a radar profiler and disdrometer. The use of a Doppler radar profiler (at vertical incidence) alongside a disdrometer allows the measurement of the drop size distribution (DSD) at the surface, computation of its associated value of reflectivity, and comparison to the reflectivity measured by the radar at heights of 300400 m just beyond the radar recovery time. This calibrates the radar remarkably well. The method was first used by Joss et al. (1968). They measured the reflectivity at a height of only 200 m above their zenith pointing radar while measuring the rain and DSD with gauges and a disdrometer. In 46 periods of uniform stratiform rain they found excellent agreement between the actual and the disdrometer-deduced values of Z with a standard deviation of only 6% or 0.25 dB in the ratio between the two. It is also remarkable that the radar calibration was maintained to this accuracy for a period of 4 months. This approach has been extended by Gage et al. (2000) and others. An analogous technique is that of Kollias et al. (1999), who used a vertically pointing 94-GHz Doppler radar. At this frequency the Mie backscatter function results in a well-defined minimum in the Doppler spectrum at a specific drop size. The difference between the measured Doppler speed and the known fall speed for that drop size in still air is then a measure of the air motion; hence, the Doppler spectrum in still air may be recovered and the DSD and its reflectivity may be computed. The absolute number of drops depends upon the overall radar calibration and the attenuation by the rain. Thus one still needs to use a disdrometer adjacent to the radar to account for the attenuation. Once the zenith pointing radars are calibrated in this fashion, they may be used as transfer standards for other radars. Ulbrich and Lee (1999) have used the reflectivity computed from drop size distributions measured with
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a disdrometer at the surface to check the calibration of the WSR-88D at Greer, South Carolina, about 60 km away from their site at Clemson University. They found that the radar gain was consistently 5 dB too low. This is a straightforward technique, particularly when used in relatively steady rainfall when the bright band is high. It is similar to the schemes used by Joss et al. (1968) and that reported by Zawadzki at this workshop. Measurement of DSD by aircraft. One may use observations of the drop size distribution on board an aircraft for comparison to ground-based radar measurements. This has been done by Marks et al. (1993) to calibrate and obtain the ZR relation in a hurricane. In the latter case, the radar was on board the aircraft and measured the reflectivity at a modest distance ahead. The DSD was then measured a few minutes later as the aircraft penetrated the radar-measured location. After 56 years of research in radar meteorology, we have still failed to find a reliable and universally applicable method of radar calibration. Various radar configurations require different approaches. I hope that this brief essay will serve as a menu of simple methods to fit the needs of various investigators and operational users.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. I appreciate the discussions with Dr. Merrill Skolnik, former Superintendent of the Radar Division of the Naval Research Laboratories. He remains skeptical about the accuracy that may be achieved by some of the techniques described. This work was done under the aegis of the NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission.

REFERENCES
Atlas, D., 1967: STADAR, standard target radar. U. S. Patent No. 3,357,014. , and S. C. Mossop, 1960: Calibration of a weather radar by using standard target. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 41, 377382. , W. H. Paulsen, R. J. Donaldson, A. C. Chmela, and V. G. Plank, 1953: Observation of the sea breeze by 1.25 cm radar. Proc. Conf. on Radio Meteorology, Austin, TX, Amer. Meteor. Soc., Paper XI-6. , W. G. Harper, F. H. Ludlam, and W. C. Macklin, 1960: Radar scatter by large hail. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 86, 468482.

Austin, P. M., and E. L. Williams, 1951: Comparison of radar signal intensity with precipitation rate. Weather Radar Research Tech. Rep. 14, Dept. of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 pp. Bolen, S. M., and V. Chandrasekar, 2000: Quantitative cross validation of space-based and ground-based radar observations. J. Appl. Meteor., 39, 2071 2079. Chisholm, J., 1963: Frequency shift reflector. U.S. Patent No. 3,108,275. Gage, K. S., C. R. Williams, P. E. Johnston, W. L. Ecklund, R. Cifelli, A. Tokay, and D. A. Carter, 2000: Doppler radar profilers as calibration tools for scanning radars. J. Appl. Meteor., 39, 22092222. Glover, K. M., K. R. Hardy, T. G. Hardy, W. N. Sullivan, and A. S. Michael, 1966: Radar observations of insects in free flight. Science, 154, 967972. Hitschfeld, W., 1986: The invention of radar meteorology. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 67, 3337. Joss, J., J. C. Thams, and A. Waldvogel, 1968: The accuracy of daily rainfall measurements by radar. Preprints, 13th Radar Meteorology Conf., Montreal, QC, Canada, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 448451. Kollias, P., R. Lhermitte, and B. Albrecht, 1999: Vertical air motion and rain drop size distributions in convective systems using a 94 GHz radar. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 31093112. Marks, F. D., Jr., D. Atlas, and P. T. Willis, 1993: Probability matched reflectivityrainfall relations for a hurricane from aircraft observations. J. Appl. Meteor., 32, 11341141. Probert-Jones, J. R., 1962: The radar equation in meteorology. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 88, 485495. Stratmann, E., D. Atlas, J. H. Richter, and D. R. Jensen, 1971: Sensitivity calibration of a dual-beam vertically pointing FM-CW radar. J. Appl. Meteor., 10, 1260 1265. Ulbrich, C. W., and L. G. Lee, 1999: Rainfall measurement error by WSR-88D radars due to variations in ZR law parameters and radar constant. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 16, 10171024. Willis, J. R., K. A. Browning, and D. Atlas, 1964: Radar observations of ice spheres in free fall. J. Atmos. Sci., 21, 103108.

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