Electronically steered weather radar

An electronically steered weather radar system comprising:

• a plurality of transmit/receive modules, each transmit/receive module configured to adjust a phase characteristic of a radio frequency (RF) signal to be transmitted and received;
• a plurality of antenna modules, each antenna module in communication with one transmit/receive module, the antenna modules forming an antenna array configured to transmit a system beam having a beamwidth in a direction determined by the phase of the RF signal from each transmit/receive module and to generate the RF signal from the received system beam;
• and
• a system signal processor configured to perform a first scan to detect meteorological formations wherein the system signal processor communicates with each transmit/receive module to adjust a phase characteristic of the RF signals such that the antenna array transmits and receives the system beam through a plurality of azimuth angles with a first azimuth step value, a plurality of elevation angles with a first elevation step value, the first azimuth step value and the first elevation step value being integer multiples of the beamwidth of the system beam, and at a first range, and to perform additional scans wherein the range is changed by at least a first value.

An electronically steered weather radar system comprising:

• a plurality of transmit/receive modules, each transmit/receive module configured to adjust a phase characteristic of a radio frequency (RF) signal to be transmitted and received;
• a plurality of antenna modules, each antenna module in communication with one transmit/receive module and including a horizontally polarized antenna and a vertically polarized antenna, the antenna modules forming an antenna array configured to transmit a system beam having a beamwidth in a direction determined by the phase of the RF signal from each transmit/receive module and to generate the RF signal from the received system beam and to transmit and receive a horizontally polarized system beam and a vertically polarized system beam;
• and
• a system signal processor configured to perform a first scan to detect meteorological formations wherein the system signal processor communicates with each transmit/receive module to adjust a phase characteristic of the RF signals such that the antenna array transmits and receives the system beam through a plurality of azimuth angles with a first azimuth step value, a plurality of elevation angles with a first elevation step value, the first azimuth step value and the first elevation step value being larger than the beamwidth of the system beam, and at a first range, and to perform additional scans wherein the range is changed by at least a first value.