Near-field Antenna Measurement of an Active Phased Array Antenna for a New-Generation Weather Radar

摘要

We are developing a new-generation weather radar to observe and predict short-term weather phenomena like severe storms, gust and so on. Therefore, an active phased array antenna (APAA) with digital beam-forming (DBF) receivers could be used for the new-generation weather radar to reduce the observation time. In Toshiba Corporation, 33m x 16m vertical near-field antenna range including the digital instrumentation receivers have been working for multi-beam DBF antenna measurements. This near-field antenna range is used to evaluate the performance of an APAA. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of this new-generation weather radar and the APAA. And we demonstrate the antenna measurement set-up using the near-field antenna range and the measurement results of this antenna.