System Design of Ground Based Sounder for Nowcasting

This article presents the configuration design of a Ground based Sounder (GBS) for localized weather forecasting, especially for now-casting purposes. It will provide atmospheric vertical temperature and humidity profiles up to 10km altitude using 14 and 13 channels in oxygen (50-60GHz) and water vapor absorption band (22.3 GHz) respectively. This instrument is configured as noise injection radiometer with a wideband tunable frequency synthesizer, resulting in significant reduction in system size. Radiometric sensitivity of 0.2K −1.7K will be achieved with provision for programmable integration time in 0.01 to 1sec range, allowing users to configure the instrument as per their requirement. It will be an all-weather, compact and self-calibrating field deployable instrument which will be used in maritime and air-force installations, commercial airports, weather stations, rocket launch ports, research institutes, astronomical observatories and industrial establishments.