| In this work, an adaptive beamformer as a coherent radar imaging technique was used with a sophisticated multiple receiver radar, the Turbulent Eddy Profiler (TEP), which was developed by the University of Massachusetts (Mead et al., J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 15, 849--859; 1998). This unique 915-MHz radar system has up to 64 independent receivers. Numerical simulations were conducted prior to field experiments to investigate the feasibility and to test the performance on the system. A flexible and robust simulation scheme, which was first introduced by Holdsworth and Reid (Radio Science, 30, 1263--1280, 1995) was adapted and improved in the present work. An artifact induced by reflectivity variations to the traditional non-adaptive Fourier method was discovered. This effect was shown to be mitigated by the use of adaptive algorithms such as Capon's method. Because the original TEP design was susceptible to clutter interference through the grating lobes, a new array design in conjunction with the use of Capon's adaptive method was proposed to improve this deficiency. Finally, two atmospheric case studies using the TEP were conducted to demonstrate the usefulness of the radar in conducting high spatial and temporal resolution scientific studies. |
