Initial cloud images with the NRL high power 94 GHz WARLOC radar

The naval research laboratory has recently developed a high power 94 GHz radar with scanning capability, WARLOC. It relies on three advances in millimeter wave capability, a gyroklystron, designed at NRL and manufactured at CPI [2,3], a quasi-optical duplexer [4] developed by Lincoln laboratory, and an overmoded waveguide transmission system developed by General Atomics. The WARLOC transmitter is designed to generate up to 100 kW of peak power and 10 kW of average power at 94 GHz; operation to date has been approximately 70 kW peak power and 2 kW average power. This is about three orders of magnitude more average power than W band radar cloud system. Here we report initial results on cloud studies. New capabilities of WARLOC include imaging with greatly improved sensitivity and detail, the ability to detect much lower cloud returns, the capability of using chirped pulses with pulse compression for high resolution, the rapid generation of high resolution three dimensional images, and the possibility of producing extremely fine scale images with stretch processing. WARLOC is now set up on the western shore Chesapeake Bay. This talk presents some of the first cloud images obtained.