The “Data Challenge” for Fully Digital Phased Array Weather Radars: Impact of Quantization

Fully digital phased array radars (PAR) enable rapid scanning of severe weather phenomena with high temporal and spatial resolution through adaptive beamforming and other advanced methods. An important challenge with such systems is the transferring, processing, and storing of the vast amount of data that can be produced, especially if element-level data are needed. Therefore, reduction of I/Q data size should be investigated when considering fully digital arrays for both scientific and operational needs. In this research, the effects I/Q linear quantization on polarimetric weather radar products has been examined. Among other effects, the results show that pulse compression effectively reduces quantization noise while maintaining the peak storm structure. As expected, negative quantization effects increase with lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).