Reconfigurable data acquisition system for weather radar applications

Tornado, hazardous weather and flood detection radars demand high-throughput, high-speed data acquisition and processing. Weather-processing systems need to be capable of implementing powerful signal processing algorithms on the raw data collected by the radars. Following processing, data is distributed to the end-user in real-time for timely and accurate detection of imminent weather disasters. Since physical accessibility to such systems is often limited, remote-user based control and reconfiguration of processing capabilities are also essential. A real-time data acquisition, processing and distribution system for weather radar applications that meets these needs is described in this paper. This FPGA-based system has been successfully integrated with a radar optimized for tornado detection and deployed in the field