The Multifunction Phased Array Radar (MPAR) program in the US seeks to combine multiple weather and air traffic monitoring radar systems into one large type of multifunction phased array, leading to overall benefits to these applications that are summarized in another paper in this session. One of the primary issues in adopting phased array technology for weather radar, however, is the strict requirements that this application has for beam shape and polarization purity as a function of scan angle. Cylindrical arrays theoretically offer the ability to overcome many of the underlying challenges, owing to their natural beam shape and polarization invariance vs. scan angle over much of the scan ranges of interest, but they also pose their own significant challenges in simulation, beamforming, calibration, and beam pattern synthesis. This presentation highlights the emerging trade spaces between planar and cylindrical arrays in meeting the requirements of MPAR and other applications requiring beam shape and polarization invariance with scan angle, and summarizes progress that has been made towards achieving these requirements and better understanding the underlying tradeoffs through small and medium-scale demonstrators.
