Correction of Atmospheric Bending Error for Distributed Astronomical Radar based on NWM

Neutral atmospheric bending error is one of the unfavorable factors that are unneglectable when distributed astronomical radar conducts precise observations in high frequency bands. It is caused by the spatial change of refractivity during electromagnetic propagation. This paper uses high-precision numerical weather model (NWM) data to generate refractivity profiles and estimates neutral atmospheric bending error with ray tracing method. Computer simulation verifies effectiveness of proposed method and analyses impact of error residual on the transmit-coherence performance for distributed astronomical radar.