RADIO SCIENCE, VOL. 47, RS2017, doi:10.

1029/2011RS004753, 2012

An optimal design of a cylindrical polarimetric phased array

radar for weather sensing
Shaya Karimkashi1 and Guifu Zhang2,3
Received 18 April 2011; revised 7 February 2012; accepted 8 March 2012; published 24 April 2012.

[1] An optimal design of a cylindrical polarimetric phased array radar (CPPAR) for
weather sensing is presented. A recently introduced invasive weed optimization (IWO)
technique is employed to obtain the desired radiation pattern of the CPPAR. Instead
of optimizing each element excitation in a large array (with expensive calculation costs),
the modified Bernstein polynomial distribution, defined by seven parameters, is used to
optimize the current distribution for the CPPAR. The simulation results show that the
desired sidelobe levels (SLLs) and beam width are achieved in a computationally effective
manner. Furthermore, the imaged feed arrangement is used to suppress the crosspolarization level. Both co-polar and cross-polar radiation patterns for broadside and
off-broadside directions are presented to show the performance of the optimized CPPAR.
Citation: Karimkashi, S., and G. Zhang (2012), An optimal design of a cylindrical polarimetric phased array radar for weather
sensing, Radio Sci., 47, RS2017, doi:10.1029/2011RS004753.

1. Introduction
[2] Phased array radar (PAR) technology has recently
been introduced to the weather community. The first phased
array radar dedicated to weather observation, the National
Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT) was developed in Norman,
Oklahoma [Zrnic et al., 2007]. Operating at a wavelength of
9.38 cm, the NWRT is able to make reliable weather measurements. Compared to conventional reflector antennas with
mechanically steered beams, the NWRT takes advantage of
electronic beam steering, resulting in shorter surveillance
times and faster data updates. In addition, the NWRT has the
capability to steer the beam mechanically in the azimuth
direction, allowing for multiple measurements of the same
meteorological volume [Yu et al., 2007; Heinselman et al.,
2008; Zhang et al., 2011a; Le et al., 2009; Zhang and
Doviak, 2007, 2008; Yeary et al., 2010].
[3] While PAR is starting to receive attention in the
weather community, radar polarimetry has already matured
to the stage where Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler
(WSR-88D) radars are being upgraded with dual-polarization
capability [Doviak et al., 2000]. It is desirable to combine
electronic beam steering and polarimetry capabilities. However, a planar polarimetric phased array radar (PPPAR) has
some deficiencies when the beam is scanned off-broadside.
The PPPAR, with multiple faces to scan the whole azimuth

1
Atmospheric Radar Research Center, National Weather Center,
University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA.
2
School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma,
USA.
3
Also at Atmospheric Radar Research Center, National Weather Center,
University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA.

Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical Union.

0048-6604/12/2011RS004753

space, suffers from the disadvantages of increase in beam

width, loss of sensitivity and coupling in dual-polarizations
when the beam is pointed away from the broadside angle
[Zhang et al., 2009].
[4] The cylindrical polarimetric phased array radar (CPPAR)
has been recently proposed to overcome the deficiencies
encountered with PPPAR. The CPPAR principle and potential performance was studied by Zhang et al. [2011b] as
compared with the WSR-88D radar. It has the advantages of
azimuth scan-invariant pattern and orthogonal polarizations.
Although the CPPAR has several advantages compared to
PPPAR, there is a concern as how to achieve desired performance for a given antenna size, including low sidelobe
level (SLL) (<
27 dB), narrow beam width (<1.0 degree)
and low cross-polarization. To achieve high performance, it
is desirable to use a pattern synthesis method to optimally
determine weight.
[5] Generally, the numerical analysis of large conformal
array antennas is very expensive and requires an extremely
large computational domain. On the other hand, the common
mathematical and computational simplifications of planar
array cannot be applied directly to conformal arrays. Direct
array pattern synthesis techniques including Fourier methods
[Taylor, 1952; Josefsson and Persson, 2006], aperture projection methods [Chiba et al., 1989; Schuman, 1994], adaptive array methods [Zhou and Ingram, 1999; Sureau and
Keeping, 1982], alternative projection methods [Steyskal,
2002; Vescovo, 1995] and least mean square methods
[Vaskelainen, 1997; Dinnichert, 2000] have been used for
pattern synthesis of conformal array antennas. Although these
techniques are fast, the effect of coupling between elements is
not usually taken into account. Optimization techniques
including genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and simulated annealing (SA) are also applied to
the conformal array antennas synthesis problem [Yang et al.,
2009; Sun et al., 2010; Li et al., 2010; Boeringer and Werner,

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Figure 1. The CPPAR configuration.

2005; Ferreira and Ares, 1997]. Although optimization
techniques are more efficient in obtaining the desired radiation pattern, they are very expensive for large array antennas,
especially when an accurate analysis is considered. On the
other hand, a huge number of evaluations is needed to obtain
the optimized values for all the variables. Therefore, applying
any optimization method to a CPPAR with a few thousand
elements will be very expensive.
[6] In this paper, an optimal design of the cylindrical
polarimetric phased array radar (CPPAR) for weather measurements is presented. A recently introduced optimization
technique, Invasive Weed Optimization (IWO) [Karimkashi
and Kishk, 2009, 2010] is employed to optimize the elements
excitation current of the CPPAR to obtain the desired SLLs
and beam width. A two dimensional (2D) modified Bernstein
polynomial [Boeringer and Werner, 2005] is used to define
the amplitude distribution of the CPPAR to improve

Figure 3. The co-polar and cross-polar radiation patterns of

the single element and one active element within a 3  3
array in (a) vertical and (b) horizontal planes.
computational efficiency. Optimizing the modified Bernstein
polynomial distribution (defined by seven parameters) instead
of each elements amplitude substantially reduces the computational burden. By using such a smooth and unimodal
amplitude distribution, the active element pattern technique is

Figure 2. The configuration of patch antenna fed by probes with (top) top view and (bottom) side view.
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Table 1. Some of the Key Terms Used in the IWO

Term
Agent/seed
Fitness
Plant
Colony
Population size
Maximum number of plants

Explanation
Each individual in the colony containing
a value of each optimization variable
A value representing the goodness
of the solution for each seed
One agent/seed after evaluating its fitness
The entire agents or seeds
The number of plants in the colony
The maximum number of plants allowed
to produce new seeds in the colony

used where the element pattern of each element is calculated

in the presence of its neighboring elements.
[7] This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents
the modeling and design principles of the CPPAR. Application of the IWO to the CPPAR is presented in section 3.
The antenna optimization results are shown in section 4.
Finally the conclusion is drawn in section 5.

2. CPPAR Modeling and Design

[8] The configuration of the CPPAR consisting of M  N
dual polarized microstrip patch radiating elements is shown
in Figure 1. Although, in principle, any number of beams
can be formed, it has been found that a four-beam system is
appropriate in either the planar or cylindrical configuration
[Zhang et al., 2011b]. Each active sector of the antenna, a
quarter of the cylinder, generates a beam with the broadside
direction along the bisector of that sector. The azimuth beam
steering is achieved by commutation, and the elevation beam
steering is electronic and ranges from 0 degree to 30 degrees.
[9] Each microstrip patch antenna working at the frequency of 2.8 GHz is designed on an RT/Duriod 5880 substrate of thickness of 3.175 mm. The square patch antenna is
excited by using 50 W probe feeds (Figure 2).
[10] In order to account for the mutual coupling between
elements, a 3  3 array is modeled when the central element
is excited and the other elements are terminated to matched

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loads. The simulated results are shown in Figure 3. These

results indicate that the coupling between elements mostly
affects the cross-polar radiation pattern. Including the neighboring elements in calculating the elements active pattern is
adequate. It should be mentioned that the cross polarization
level is below
40 dB at the vertical plane (E-plane).
[11] After obtaining the element pattern, the total radiated
field of the CPPAR can be obtained by:
Eq; 8

XM
m1

XN
n1

EPm;n q; 8Am; n

 exp jk R sinq cos8
8m zn cosq

where EPm,n(q, 8) are the active element pattern, A(m, n) are

the element excitation complex current, k is the free space
wave number, R is the radius of the cylinder and d is the
distance between elements. 8m and zn are the location of each
element on the cylinder coordinate system. It is desirable for
CPPAR to have a comparable performance to WSR-88D,
which has a reflector antenna with a diameter of 8.54 m. To
have the same effective size of the WSR-88D reflector for
each active sector, the CPPAR should have a height of
8.54 m and a radius of R = 6.05 m.

3. CPPAR Optimization
[12] In this section, the optimization algorithm is applied
to the CPPAR antenna to obtain the desired SLLs and beam
widths for both the broadside and off-broadside radiation
patterns. The IWO algorithm is briefly described and then
the optimization procedure, inter-element spacing between
elements and cross-polarization minimization are discussed.
3.1. IWO Algorithm
[13] The IWO algorithm has been introduced recently.
This algorithm has attracted much attention and been applied
to different problems. It has been shown that the IWO can
outperform both the GA and the PSO in the convergence rate

Figure 4. Flowchart showing the IWO algorithm.

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the present time step can be expressed by:

siter


iter max
itern 
sinital
sfinal sfinal
n
iter max

where itermax is the maximum number of iterations. sinitial

and sfinal are defined initial and final standard deviations,
respectively and n is the nonlinear modulation index (Spatial
dispersion).
[20] 6-After that all seeds have found their positions over the
search area, the new seeds grow to the flowering plants and then,
they are ranked together with their parents. Plants with lower
ranking in the colony are eliminated to reach the maximum
number of plants in the colony, Pmax (Competitive exclusion).
[21] 7-After this process carried out for all of the plants,
the process is repeated at step 3 until either the maximum

Figure 5. The simulated radiation patterns of the CPPAR

with different element spacing in (a) vertical and (b) horizontal planes.
as well as the final error level. Considering the algorithm
process, the key terms used to describe this algorithm should
be introduced. Some of these terms are presented in Table 1.
Each individual or agent, a set containing a value of each
optimization variable, is called a seed. Each seed grows to a
flowering plant in the colony. The meaning of a plant is
one individual or agent after evaluating its fitness. Therefore,
growing a seed to a plant corresponds to evaluating an
agents fitness [Karimkashi and Kishk, 2010].
[14] To simulate the colonizing behavior of weeds, the
following steps, pictorially shown in Figure 4, are considered [Karimkashi and Kishk, 2009, 2010]:
[15] 1-First of all, the N optimization parameters (variables)
should be chosen. For each of these variables in the
N-dimensional solution space, a maximum and minimum
value should be assigned (Define the solution space).
[16] 2-Each seed takes a random position over the d
dimensional problem (Initialize a population).
[17] 3-Each initialized seed grows to a flowering plant. In
other words, the fitness function returns a fitness value to be
assigned to each plant, and then these plants are ranked based
on their assigned fitness values (Evaluate fitness and ranking).
[18] 4-Every plant produces seeds based on its assigned
fitness or ranking. The number of seeds each plant produces
depends on the ranking of that plant and increases from its
minimum possible seed production (Smin) to its maximum
(Smax) (Reproduction).
[19] 5-The produced seeds in this step are being dispread
over the search space by normally distributed random
numbers with mean equal to the location of producing plants
and varying standard deviations. The standard deviation at

Figure 6. 2  2 sub-array for (a) baseline and (b) imaged

feed arrangements.

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Table 2. IWO Parameter Values for the Array Optimization

itmax

pmax

smax

smin

sinitial

sfinal

30

10

0.1

0.01

elements. A one dimensional modified Bernstein polynomial

is defined as [Boeringer and Werner, 2005]:

f u

number of iteration is reached or the fitness criterion is met

(Repeat).
3.2. Optimization Procedure
[22] The IWO with restricted boundary condition is
applied to the problem of synthesizing the far field radiation
pattern of the CPPAR antenna. The phase shifts are chosen
to make a phase front in the direction of the chosen scan
angle. Therefore, only the amplitude weights of elements are
optimized to achieve the desired sidelobe levels. The objective is to obtain sidelobe levels less than a tapered sidelobe
mask decreasing linearly from
30 dB to
40 dB in the
range of 1 |q| 10 , 1 |8| 10 and less than
40 dB
for |q| > 10 , |8| > 10 . A do not exceed criterion is
utilized in the objective function. That is, an error will be
reported if the obtained radiation pattern exceeds the desired
sidelobe level. The optimization process for a few thousand
radiating elements is computationally very expensive. In
order to avoid expensive computations in finding optimal
weights for each element, a modified Bernstein polynomial
[Boeringer and Werner, 2005] is utilized to define the current distribution of the array antenna. In other words, instead
of optimizing the excitation coefficients of array elements, a
two dimensional function defined by seven variables specifies
a smooth and uni-modal current distribution on the array

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8
>
>
< C0
>
>
: C1

1
C0

AN0 1
A
1
C0

AN0 A 1

AN1 A 1
AN1 1
A

uN0 A 1
uN0 1
A ; 0 u A

uN1 A 1
uN1 1
A ; A u 1

where A, C0, C1, N0, and N1 specify the shift of the excitation
maximum, the left and right endpoint values, and the left and
right sharpness of the peak of f(u). For the cylindrical array
antenna, a two dimensional modified Bernstein polynomial
is generated by multiplication of two 1D functions in the 8
and z directions.
[23] Since the desired envelope is symmetrical in the
azimuth plane, we exploit the symmetry of current distribution in this plane. Therefore, f(8m) is defined with two
parameters since N0 = N1, C0 = C1, and A = 0.5. After
some simple manipulation f(8m) can be expressed as:
N0
N0
f 8m C0 1
C0 2N0 8m =2 1
8m =2 :

[24] Using the new expression, only seven parameters,

instead of ten, are optimized to obtain the desired current
distributions. Having fewer variables makes the optimization
process simpler and faster.
[25] It should be noticed that the current distribution can
be defined as the summation of some orthogonal functions
like Bessel and Cosine; however, it might not be realizable
in practice due to the coupling effects that tend to smooth out

Figure 7. The simulated co-polar and cross-polar radiation pattern of the optimized CPPAR for broadside pattern in the (a and b) vertical and (c and d) horizontal planes.
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radiation patterns of the CPPAR for different element spacing in both the vertical and horizontal planes are shown in
Figure 5. It should be noted that the radiation patterns in the
vertical plane are computed for the case where the main beam
is pointed to its maximum scan angle (q = 30 degrees).
Therefore, element spacing in the vertical and horizontal
planes is chosen to be 0.65l and 0.6l, respectively. Such
element spacing yields 122 elements in each vertical column
and 592 elements in each ring around the cylinder.
3.4. Cross-Polarization Minimization
[27] In order to suppress the level of cross-polarization,
the mirrored feed arrangement is considered [Woelders and
Granholm, 1997; Granholm and Woelders, 2001; Rahmat-

Figure 8. The simulated images of the optimized CPPAR

(a) co-polar radiation pattern, (b) cross-polar radiation pattern, and (c) current distribution.

the effective amplitude distribution. Furthermore, using the

modified Bernstein polynomial causes a gradual decrease of
sidelobe levels by moving the observation angle away from
the main beam. In addition, the simulation results show that
the maximum sidelobe levels occur in the principle planes.
Thus, defining the sampling points at the principle planes
and around the main beam guarantees obtaining the desired
sidelobe levels in all the directions.
3.3. Inter-element Spacing
[26] In order to achieve a cost-efficient design for the
CPPAR, the number of elements should be minimized. The
advantage of minimizing the element number is clear from
the point of view of T/R modules. Minimizing the number
of elements for periodic array antennas means increasing
element spacing, causing the appearance of grating lobes. In
order to compromise between the number of elements and
appearance of grating lobes, a case study is done. Simulated

Figure 9. A comparison between the optimized and WSR88D tapering current distribution of the CPPAR for (a) the
simulated radiation pattern in the vertical plane, (b) the simulated radiation pattern in the horizontal plane, and (c) the
simulated current distribution in the horizontal plane.

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Figure 10. The simulated co-polar and cross polar radiation patterns of the optimized CPPAR for scan
direction 10 in the (a and b) vertical and (c and d) horizontal planes.

Figure 11. The simulated co-polar and cross-polar radiation patterns of the optimized CPPAR for scan
direction 20 in the (a and b) vertical and (c and d) horizontal planes.
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Figure 12. The simulated co-polar and cross-polar radiation pattern of the optimized CPPAR for scan
direction 30 in the (a and b) vertical and (c and d) horizontal planes.
Samii et al., 2006]. For the sake of illustration, an array
consisting of identical 2  2 subarrays is considered. The feed
arrangements for the conventional (baseline) and mirrored
feed arrangements are shown in Figures 6a and 6b, respectively. The ports with a negative sign - mark are fed 180
out of phase compared to the port marked with a positive
sign +. It will be seen that using the image feed arrangements substantially suppresses the cross-polarization level.

4. Optimization Results
[28] In this section, the simulated radiation patterns of the
optimized CPPAR for different scan directions are presented.
The optimization is applied to the co-polar pattern in each
scan direction and the cross-polar pattern is computed for
the two arrangements shown in section 3.3. It should be
mentioned that only the vertically polarized radiation pattern
are shown for brevity. In this case, Eq is copular and E8 is
cross-polar component, respectively. The parameters used
for the IWO are summarized in Table 2.
4.1. Broadside Pattern
[29] Figure 7 shows the simulated radiation patterns of the
CPPAR in both the vertical and horizontal planes. It can be
seen that the desired sidelobe levels and beam widths are
achieved. Moreover, the effect of mirrored feed arrangement
on the suppression of the cross-polar pattern is observed.
The simulated co-polar and cross-polar radiation pattern
images of the CPPAR are shown in Figure 8. The higher
sidelobe levels in the principle planes confirm the affectivity
of the observation points defined on the principle planes.
Figure 8b shows that higher cross-polarization levels occur

at the locations far beyond the main beam. The optimized

current distribution of the array is shown in Figure 8c. It is
seen that a very smooth tapering is achieved.
[30] In another effort, the optimized radiation pattern of
the CPPAR is compared to the case where WSR-88D
tapering is applied to the CPPAR. The comparison between
the simulated radiation pattern of these two are shown in
Figures 9a and 9b. The mainlobe of the optimized CPPAR
pattern is very close to that of WSR-88D pattern, but the
sidelobe level is much lower. A comparison between the
current distribution of these arrays in the azimuth plane
are shown in Figure 9c. Although the modification in the
current distribution is minor, it causes great improvement
in the radiation pattern of the array. In other words, the
sidelobes levels are very sensitive to the small deviations
of the current distribution, indicating the importance of the
optimization.
4.2. Off Broadside Patterns
[31] The simulated radiation pattern of the array for scan
directions of 10 degrees, 20 degrees and 30 degrees are
shown in Figures 1012. It is seen that desired SLLs and
beam widths are obtained for all the scan directions. It is
also seen that the mirrored feed arrangement suppressed the
level of cross-polarization in all scan directions. Table 3
shows the maximum cross-polarization Level for all the
scan directions. It can be observed that by increasing the
scan direction away from the broadside angle, the crosspolarization level is increased. It should be noticed that the
maximum cross-polarization occurs at angles far from the
main beam.

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4.3. CPPAR Sensitivity

[32] In Figure 13, the minimum detectable reflectivity
factor of CPPAR versus the distance from the antenna for
different scan directions and different maximum power is
compared to that of the WSR-88D
R [Doviak and Zrnic, 1993].
The reflectivity factor is Z D6 N DdD with D as the
drop diameter and N(D) as the drop size distribution, which is
the normalized radar reflectivity of the backscattering cross
section per unit volume for Rayleigh scattering. The minimal
detectable reflectivity is defined such that the signal-to-noise
(SNR) is zero dB. The calculations were made using Doviak
and Zrnic [1993, equation (4.35)] by assuming 1 ms pulse
and ignoring the transmission losses. It is shown that
increasing the maximum allowed power from each single
patch from 10 W to 100 W makes the CPPAR compatible
with the WSR-88D having a 475 kW peak power. It is also
seen that by increasing scan direction (q) the minimal
detectable reflectivity is increased, meaning a reduced sensitivity. Fortunately, such sensitivity reduction is within 3 dB
and the reduced sensitivity is acceptable because the radar
does not need to make measurements at long range at high
elevation. It is noted that the sensitivity calculation applies
to a passive CPPAR without taking processing gain into
account. Had an active CPPAR been used with N T/R
modules, there would be a sensitivity gain of 10log(N) dB.

5. Conclusion
[33] The IWO algorithm was applied to optimally design
the cylindrical polarimetric phased array radar for weather
sensing applications. A Modified Bernstein polynomial
defined by seven variables was optimized to assign the
current amplitude to the microstrip patch elements of the
CPPAR. Using the modified Bernstein polynomial, not only
is the computational domain reduced, but a very smooth
current distribution is assigned to the CPPAR antenna,
increasing the antenna efficiency and minimizing the effect
of coupling between elements. After minimizing the number
of elements of the CPPAR, the amplitude weights of elements are optimized while the phase weights are chosen to
make a phase front in the direction of the chosen scan angle.
In addition, the imaged feed arrangement was used to

Figure 13. A comparison between the maximum reflectivity of the CPPAR and WSR-88D.

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Table 3. The Maximum Cross-Polarization Level for Different

Scan Angles
Scan Direction

Max cross-polarization
level (dB)

q = 90

q = 80

q = 70

q = 60

26.3

25.37

22.81

20.73

suppress the cross-polarization level. The simulation results

show that the desired sidelobe levels and beam widths are
achieved for the broadside and off broadside angles. However,
by increasing the scan angle in elevation, the beam width was
slightly increased. Moreover, the cross-polarization level has
been suppressed by using the imaged feed technique. For the
broadside beam pattern a very low cross-polarization level is
obtained around the main beam. However, when the beam is
scanned off broadside, the cross-polarization level increased.
Considering the fact that an alternative transmission CPPAR
system has much less stringent requirements, even the
increased cross-polarization level is acceptable. Using the
CPPAR for simultaneous transmission requires heavier suppression of cross-polarization and should be subject to more
studies.
[34] Acknowledgments. The work is supported by NOAA grant
NA08OAR4320904 and NSF grant AGS-1046171.

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