Horus

With support from NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), the ARRC has developed a fully digital polarimetric rotating PAR system called "Horus", the ancient Egyptian sky god with the all-seeing eye.

System Overview

The Horus radar is a truck-based, S-band, fully digital polarimetric phased array radar. Fully digital systems hold promise for meeting some of the greatest technical challenges facing the meteorological community, such as the effective integration of dual-polarization capability with phased array beam agility.

System characteristics

• 32,000 W total peak power (10 W per polarization per element)
• Operation frequency: 2.1-3.2 GHz (S-band)
  • Wavelength: 10 cm
  • Pulse length: Up to 100 μsec @ 10% duty cycle
  • Pulse repetition frequency: 1-10,000 Hz
  • Element polarization: ATSR / STSR / RHCP / LHCP
  • Transmit waveform type: AWG / LFM / NLFM
• 25 line-replaceable unit (LRU)
• 1,600 dual-pol elements
• 2.58° broadside beamwidth with no taper
• 2.03 × 2.03 m² aperture
• 0.5 λ @ 2.951 GHz
• Electronic scan:
• Azimuth coverage: -45° to +45°
• Elevation coverage: -45° to +45°
• Mechanical positioner:
  • Azimuth coverage: 360°
  • Elevation coverage: -1° to 92°
• Sensitivity:
• Better than 4.3 dBZ at 50 km
• Simultaneous dual-polarization
• Real-time I/Q data recording/processing
• A/D converter resolution: 16 bit
• Transmit/receiver bandwidth: 100 MHz
• On-board cluster for high-performance computing