Accuracy of velocity and power determination by the Doppler method

When designing a Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere (MST) radar antenna one has to trade between the choices to optimize the effective aperture or to optimize the sidelobe suppression. An optimization of the aperture increases the sensitivity. Suppression of side-lobes by tapering attenuates undesirable signals which spoil the estimates of reflectivity and velocity. Generally, any sidelobe effects are equivalent to a broadening of the antenna beam. The return signal is due to a product of the antenna pattern with the varying atmospheric reflectivity structures. Thus, knowing the antenna pattern, it is in principle possible to find the signal spectra, which, however, may be a tedious computational and ambiguous procedure. For vertically pointing main beams the sidelobe effects are efficiently suppressed because of the aspect sensitivity. It follows that sidelobes are a minor problem for spaced antenna methods. However, they can be crucial for Doppler methods, which need off-vertical beams. If a sidelobe is pointing towards the zenith a larger power may be received from the vertical than off-vertical directions, but quantitative estimates of this effect are not yet known. To get an error estimate of sidelobe effects with an off-vertical main beam a 1-dimensional example is considered.