W-band RF-photonics Receiver for Compact Cloud and Precipitation Radars

Climate and weather models depend on space-borne satellite measurements of clouds and precipitation over fine temporal scales (order of minutes). Current low Earth orbiting (LEO) weather satellites are limited in number and are thus unable to provide data with the necessary temporal resolution. A constellation of cloud profiling instruments in LEO would provide this essential capability, however, new instrument architectures, compatible with low-cost satellite platforms, such as CubeSats and SmallSats are needed to enable such missions. W-band radars operating at 94 GHz are particularly attractive for studying clouds because of greater sensitivity of millimeter-waves to cloud particles and the significant reduction in instrument size at W-band. We propose to develop the first RF-photonics radar receiver subsystem to enable the next generation of ultra-compact millimeter wave radars suitable for cloud and precipitation profiling, planetary boundary layer observation, altimetry and surface scattering measurements. The improved RF-photonics architecture was first proposed for a different application, here we propose to adapt the concept specifically for a W-band (94GHz) radar, which is generally assessed to be the primary means for observing clouds in the free troposphere as well as planetary boundary layer from space. The radically different receiver architecture offers the following advantages with respect to a typical W-band RF receiver: 1) reduced number of components and interfaces and therefore reduced size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements, 2) lower system noise (and therefore improved sensitivity), 3) integrated generation of high quality 94 GHz reference frequency (and therefore reduced ground clutter contamination over the desired cloud echoes when paired with a highly linear and low phase noise amplifier). Any one of these advantages is highly desirable form a systems point of view, however a device with all these characteristics will be a true game changer for earth observing W-band radars on resource constrained platforms. During this project we will advance the state-of-the-art of Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) resonators for W-band applications using numerical simulations and lab experiments. We will also design, build and test a high-performance W-band LO. We will fabricate and package the photonics receiver and LO, and characterize its performance (system temperature, input power tolerance, gain, linearity, dynamic range etc.) over various temperature conditions and integrate in a W-band radar test-bed and compare with traditional receiver architectures to demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of the novel RF-photonics approach.

Accelerate mission development and reduce risk by developing critical components and subsystems for advanced instruments and observing systems

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