IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 49, NO.
1, JANUARY 2011
Application of a Simple Adaptive Estimator
for an Atmospheric Doppler Radar
Mark Pinsky, Jordi Figueras i Ventura, Tobias Otto, Alexander Sterkin,
Alexander Khain, and Herman W. J. Russchenberg
Abstract—A simple method for estimating parameters of the
Doppler spectrum of atmospheric signals is described. The method
is based on an adaptive filter processing that has been widely
used in telecommunications but rarely applied in measurements
using atmospheric radars. The method has been tested using
both synthetic and real data obtained by the radar profiler—
Transportable Atmospheric Radar (TARA)—and the weather
radar—International Research Centre for Telecommunications
and Radar (IRCTR) Drizzle Radar (IDRA)—both developed by
IRCTR. The method is compared with the traditional pulse-pair
method and fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based methods, as well
as with the IRCTR FFT-based method implemented in the TARA
and IDRA processing including an additional noise clipping stage.
The tests have demonstrated high efficiency of the adaptive fil-
tering estimator under low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. The
applicability of adaptive estimations in radar meteorology and the
limitations associated with a sample length are discussed.
Index Terms—Adaptive estimation, atmospheric measure-
ments, Doppler radar, spectral moments.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T WO MAIN types of estimators of the first- and second-
order moments of the atmospheric signal spectrum are
widely used in radar meteorology: pulse-pair (PP) estimators
and estimators based on the fast Fourier transform (FFT) [3].
These estimators yield low errors in spectrum moment estima-
tion under conditions of relatively high signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) Q (10–20 dB). However, at lower SNR estimation,
errors increase rapidly, making it hardly possible to perform
any reasonable measurement at negative Q (from −10 to 0 dB).
This increase in errors is due to the fact that radar signals
Manuscript received June 14, 2009; revised November 25, 2009 and
March 22, 2010; accepted April 25, 2010. Date of publication August 5, 2010;
date of current version December 27, 2010. This work was supported in part
by the Israel Academy of Science Foundation under Grant 950/07 and in
part by the Israel Ministry of Science (German–Israel collaboration in Water
Resources) under Grant WT 0403. The work of J. Figueras i Ventura was
supported by the Dutch Climate Change Spatial Planning Program.
M. Pinsky and A. Khain are with the Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
J. Figueras i Ventura was with the International Research Centre for
Telecommunications and Radar, Delft University of Technology, 2600 Delft,
The Netherlands. He is now with Meteo France, Toulouse 31100, France.
T. Otto is with the Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz 09107,
Germany, and also with the Delft University of Technology, 2600 Delft,
The Netherlands.
A. Sterkin was with the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100,
Israel. He is now with Intel Corporation, Haifa 31015, Israel.
H. W. J. Russchenberg is with the International Research Centre for
Telecommunications and Radar, Delft University of Technology, 2600 Delft,
The Netherlands.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2010.2052055
0196-2892/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
115
reflected by meteorological scatterers usually have a relatively
narrow spectral band, which, in terms of the Doppler velocity,
corresponds to the range of about 1–2 m/s. The width of the
signal spectrum is determined by turbulent fluctuations of the
wind velocity, by the antenna beamwidth, and by other factors.
The useful radar signals are mixed with the receiver broadband
noise so that the signal at the entrance of an estimator falls
within the frequency bandwidth of 10–50 m/s while the signal
spectrum width is of 1–2 m/s. Methods based on FFT or on
autocovariance processing (the PP estimation) do not take into
consideration this specific feature of meteorological radar oper-
ation (i.e., that the narrow-band signal is mixed with the wide-
band noise) and, therefore, are not optimal from the statistical
point of view. The FFT processing can be further improved by
applying noise clipping, i.e., suppressing the Doppler bins that
are close to the noise power level. However, this clipping has
two main drawbacks, i.e., it increases the complexity of the
algorithm and suppresses part of the useful spectrum, which
can lead to an underestimation of the reflectivity or, in the case
of very weak atmospheric signals, to a complete suppression of
the useful signal.
Several studies dedicated to the application of optimal statis-
tical methods to Doppler meteorological signal processing have
been published in the past decades (see, e.g., [1] and [2]). These
studies describe algorithms based on the maximum likelihood
criterion for both parametric and nonparametric estimations of
spectra and spectrum moments. These algorithms are highly ac-
curate but, at the same time, complicated and require significant
computer time.
In this context, methods based on adaptive filtering process-
ing of signals received by Doppler meteorological radar offer
an interesting perspective [5], [7]–[9]. In these methods, both
the current signal spectrum parameters estimated in the course
of the radar measurement and the noise parameters are used not
only for obtaining data on a meteorological scatterer but also for
automatic tuning of the optimal filter. Computationwise, these
methods are quite efficient, since estimations are performed by
recursive algorithms, while being as accurate as other methods
based on the maximum likelihood criterion. Filtering out the re-
ceiver noise increases the SNR by a factor that is approximately
equal to the ratio between the widths of the noise spectrum
and the useful signal spectrum. For Transportable Atmospheric
Radar (TARA) used for measurements in stratocumulus clouds,
the signal spectrum width is around 1 m/s, and the radar covers
the Doppler velocity spectrum of ±22 m/s. Hence, the factor
can be as high as 40 (on the linear scale). Being widely applied
in automatic regulation and control systems (see, e.g., [17]), the
116 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 49, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

adaptive methods are rarely used in atmospheric radar systems The equation that establishes the relationship between the mea-
[13], [16]. sured and the useful signals in two consecutive time instants
In this paper, the performance of a simple adaptive algorithm can be written as
(adaptive PP algorithm) is formulated and implemented for
processing real atmospheric radar data. The algorithm is based Xt+1 = aZt + εt+1 + ηt+1 . (6)
on the assumption that the Doppler spectrum of backscattered
signals is symmetrical and unimodal. Some comments are needed concerning the application of
AR(1) model for description of atmospheric signals. First, since
parameter a is assumed to be constant, the model implies that
II. A DAPTIVE F ILTERING P ROCESSING signals are stationary within the measuring time interval. This
A. Signal and Noise Models assumption is more valid for wind profilers that use 0.5–5-s
intervals for measurements and less valid for continuously scan-
We assume that, after discretization, a backscattered signal ning radars with a 50–100-ms measuring interval. Second, the
from atmospheric objects Zt has the form of a complex au- AR(1) model introduces a simple one-mode symmetric spec-
toregressive series of the first order, with an unknown complex trum. Although, in most cases, atmospheric signals have such
coefficient a kind of spectrum, there are cases of more complicated spectra,
  for example, if scatterers are hydrometeors of different types or
Zt+1 = aZt + εt+1 εt  = 0 εi ε∗j = σε2 δij (1) when ground clutter exists. Third, if one is interested in measur-
ing finer characteristics of Doppler spectra such as asymmetry,
where t = 1, 2, . . . is the discrete time, εt is a normal white it is impossible to use AR(1). Therefore, the simplicity of the
random series with variance σε2 , a is a complex parameter spectrum shape may limit the application of the model.
characterizing the signal, symbol “∗ ” denotes conjugation, the
brackets   mean averaging over the number of samples, and
δij is the Kronecker symbol. The spectrum of signal (1) is B. Adaptive Filter Estimator Design
symmetric relative to the average Doppler frequency and can
The adaptive filter estimator consists of two parts—the esti-
be represented as [18]
mation part and the filtering part. If both signals Xt and Zt are
σε2 σε2 known, the estimation of parameter a, which is optimal in terms
Fz (ω) = σz2 = (2) of maximum a posteriori probability, can be obtained using the
|1 − a exp(−iω)|2 1 − |a|2
following recursive equations [12, p. 65]:
where σz2 is the power (variance) of the signal Zt and ω is Zt∗ (Xt+1 − ât Zt )
the angular frequency which lies within the range [−π, π]. The ât+1 = ât + θt
σε2 + ση2 + θt |Zt |2
frequency of the discrete signal, which is equal to −π or π,
corresponds to the Nyquist frequency of the continuous signal |Zt |2
and determines the maximum unambiguous velocity. When θt+1 = θt − θt2 (7)
σε2 + ση2 + θt |Zt |2
|a| → 1, and is less than 1, the signal can be approximated
by a quasi-sinusoidal series with a random phase. As shown in where the symbol “∧ ” denotes estimation. θt can be interpreted
Appendix A, the mean frequency of the spectrum ω coincides as the variance of estimation of ât . If there is no white noise,
with the frequency of its maximum. The standard deviation of ση = 0, Zt = X t , and the solution
 of (7) provides a regular PP
the spectrum (spectrum width Δω) depends solely on |a| estimation â = Zt∗ Zt+1 / |Zt |2 , the proposed method can
thus be interpreted as an adaptive PP algorithm.
ω = Λ = arg(a)
If we assume now that a is known, the optimal recursive
∞

  π2 (−1)k+1 k filtering of the signal is described by the following difference
(Δω)2 = (ω − Λ)2 = −4 |a| . (3) equations representing a particular case of the Kalman filter
3 k2
k=1
([12, p. 67]):
To estimate the mean Doppler frequency and the Doppler  2 
σε + |a|2 Rt (Xt+1 − aẐt )
spectrum width, it is enough to estimate the complex variable a. Ẑt+1 = aẐt +
We assume now that the useful atmospheric signal at the σε2 + ση2 + |a|2 Rt
estimator input Zt is measured while being mixed with an  2
uncorrelated additive normal complex white noise ηt (in the   σε2 + |a|2 Rt
Rt+1 = σε2 2
+ |a| Rt − 2 (8)
bandwidth of ± Nyquist frequency) having variance ση2 . The σε + ση2 + |a|2 Rt
measured signal Xt is therefore
where Rt is an average square of the filtering error. The
Xt = Zt + ηt (4) equations in (8) actually represent a digital linear filter with one
complex pole and an amplification coefficient which is variable
where in time.
  The mutual substitution of (7) and (8) leads to a system of
εt  = ηt  = 0 ηi ηj∗ = ση2 δij εi ηj  = Zi ηj  = 0. (5) equations for the adaptive filter estimator. The complete system
PINSKY et al.: APPLICATION OF A SIMPLE ADAPTIVE ESTIMATOR
of equations that describes the adaptive estimator is represented
by the following formulas:
ât+1 = ât + γt+1 Ẑt∗ (Xt+1 − ât Ẑt ) (9a)
γt
γt+1 = (9b)
1 + γt |Ẑt |2
Ẑt+1 = ât Ẑt + Pt+1 (Xt+1 − ât Ẑt ) (9c)
 
Q̂t 1 − |ât |2 + Pt |ât |2
Pt+1 = (9d)
1 + Q̂t (1 − |ât |2 ) + Pt |ât |2
where γt = θt /(σz2 + ση2 ) and Pt = Rt /ση2 . In (9), we replace
the SNR Q = σz2 /ση2 = σε2 /ση2 (1 − |a|2 ) by its estimation Q̂t
which can be measured in advance or obtained during the
ongoing measurements
 t
 t 
2
Q̂t = |Xi | |ηi |2 − 1 (10)
i=1 i=1
where ηi ’s are independently measured noise samples. In order
to use (9), the following initial conditions should be applied:
â0 = 0, Ẑ0 = 0, γ0 = |X0 |−2 , and P0 = 1. These initial condi-
tions correspond to absence of filtration at the first time. In some
cases, one can use the value of â estimated by using the previous
signal sequence as an initial condition for the next estimation.
Equation (9) provides a simultaneous optimal estimation of a
and performs signal filtering. Therefore, using (9), a recursive
estimation of a can be carried out while new data are being
acquired by the radar. After reasonable averaging, the mean
Doppler frequency and spectrum width can be computed ac-
cording to (3). It is shown in Appendix B that if the signal
is described by an autoregressive equation of the first order,
the estimation (9) is asymptotically nonbiased (ât → a, when
t → ∞). Note that the estimation (9) was obtained without
any optimization of the correlation between the autoregression
parameter â and the filtered magnitude of the signal Ẑ. Further
calculations showed that taking this correlation into account by
using a more complicated nonlinear algorithm actually does not
affect the results but makes the algorithm more complicated.
III. T ESTING THE A LGORITHM AND E RROR E STIMATION
Testing of the proposed algorithm and error estimation was
carried out using synthetic signals mixed with white noise.
Three tests were performed. In Test 1, the autoregressive sig-
nals were obtained by applying (1) and (4) and were further
processed as described by (9). The goal of Test 1 was to study
the accuracy of parameter a estimation. It was observed that,
whereas, generally, a can be properly estimated with a small
variance, there are cases where the narrow-band filter is not
formed, thus making the estimation of a not reliable. The
percentage of estimation failures depends on the length of the
time series, on the SNR, and on the Doppler spectrum width.
Table I shows the length of the time series that leads to a 10%
failure for different normalized Doppler spectrum widths and
SNRs. The estimation is considered to be a failure if the values
117
TABLE I
T IME S ERIES L ENGTHS L EADING TO A 10% FAILURE FOR
D IFFERENT D OPPLER S PECTRUM W IDTHS AND SNR S
of |â| ≤ 0.75 correspond to a Doppler spectrum width that is
larger than that of natural atmospheric signals and indicates that
the filter is not tuned to the signal spectrum.
The root-mean-square (rms) errors in estimation of the mean
frequency and the spectrum width normalized by the Nyquist
frequency were also computed for different SNRs and for three
different spectrum widths. The results can be seen in Fig. 1.
The main conclusion is that the proposed adaptive algorithm
allows a good estimation of the Doppler spectrum parameters
down to −13 dB SNR, in the case that the amount of time sam-
ples is sufficient to form the required narrow filter frequency
characteristic. For the same number of samples, the error in the
estimation of the Doppler spectrum width is higher than that
of the mean Doppler velocity. Moreover, the error increases for
narrower spectra. The algorithm is particularly efficient in cases
of small SNRs, as indicated by the fact that the slope of error
curves increases when SNR decreases.
A detailed analysis showed that the convergence period can
be divided into two different intervals (see Fig. 2). The first
one is a transient period when the formation of the filter fre-
quency characteristic takes place. During this period, estimation
experiences large variations. This transient period is followed
by the second period, where the characteristics of the filter
are largely established, and further accumulation of the signal
leads to continuous improvement of the estimation. The length
of the transient period is important in the application of the
algorithm to real atmospheric signals. Since these signals can be
considered stationary for a limited period of time, the faster the
convergence, the less the bias and the variance of the estimation
of the spectrum parameters are.
In Test 2, the mean frequency estimation was performed in
order to compare the proposed approach to estimation with
the traditional methods. White noise was added to a quadratic
monochromatic signal, and then, the mixed signal was
processed by estimators (9) and (10) and two other estimators,
118 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 49, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

Fig. 1. RMS errors in estimation of the (left column) mean Doppler velocity and (right column) Doppler spectrum width for different values of Doppler spectrum
widths Δω and SNRs. The errors are normalized by the Nyquist frequency ΩN .

namely, the standard PP and FFT (error analysis of the latter
two can be found in [14] and [10]). A 1024-sample-long series
was used in the test. The mean Doppler frequency was com-
puted under different SNRs, ranging from 1 down to −12 dB.
The FFT estimation of the mean frequency was performed
using the FFT algorithm without clipping and the appropriate
summation of the spectral components.
The results of Test 2 are shown in Fig. 3. One can see
significant advantages of the adaptive algorithm as compared
to the traditional PP algorithm and, particularly, as compared
with the FFT spectrum integration approach. If the SNR is less
than −8 dB, only the proposed adaptive algorithm provides
a satisfactory quality (error of ∼0.5–1.0 m/s) of the mean
frequency estimation. The minimum errors achievable when
processing the signal with the ideal theoretical algorithm, eval-
uated according to the Cramer–Rao inequality that determines
the theoretical minimum estimation errors (see [15]), are shown
in Fig. 3 as well.
PINSKY et al.: APPLICATION OF A SIMPLE ADAPTIVE ESTIMATOR
Fig. 2. Example of convergence of synthetic signal spectrum parameters to
their true values. SNR is equal to 0.5, the mean frequency (normalized by
Nyquist) is equal to 0.5, and the Doppler spectrum width (normalized) is equal
to 0.4.
Fig. 3. Comparison between the adaptive filtering method and the traditional
methods. The minimal errors, in processing performed by the ideal theoretical
algorithm and evaluated according to the Cramer–Rao inequality, are shown by
the dashed line. The errors are normalized by the Nyquist frequency. A 1024-
sample-long series is used in the test.
In the third test, the algorithm was applied to signals that
correspond better to the atmospheric ones. Quadratic signals
generated by the method proposed in [19] were represented as
sums of different harmonics with random phases and ampli-
tudes. The signals had symmetric spectrum of Gaussian shape
which is often used in the meteorological radar practice. The
signals were mixed with quadratic white noise and processed
using the adaptive filtering method. There are 1000 noncorre-
lated realizations used in this test.
The results are shown in Fig. 4. The upper row shows the
errors in measurements of the mean frequency. The lower row
119
shows the errors in the spectrum width. The left panels show the
bias, and the right panels show standard deviation (STD) of es-
timation. The method demonstrates the ability of measurement
of the mean frequency for samples typical of profilers (several
hundreds of samples) up to SNR = −10 dB. The bias of esti-
mation is negligible so that the errors can be attributed to STD.
For short samples typical of continuously scanning radars, the
satisfactory results are obtained only for SNR > 0 dB. The
errors in estimation of the spectrum width are substantially
bigger. The estimations have a large positive bias. Application
of short samples does not allow one to measure the spectrum
width at high enough accuracy. At long (∼1000) samples,
SNR > 15−20 dB are required for getting reasonable results.
Nevertheless, in our opinion, it would not be correct to state that
the method cannot be used for measurements of spectrum width
at all.
To compare the different methods, more realistic signals of
Test 3 were processed by the PP and the FFT-based methods.
The comparison is shown in Fig. 5 which presents dependences
of the bias and the STD on SNR for sample lengths equal to
512 (upper row) and 32 (lower row). The results show that
the bias introduces negligible errors in all the cases for all the
methods. The STD error of the adaptive method is smaller than
that of other methods, which is particularly pronounced for the
smallest values of SNR. This illustrates the main advantages
of the adaptive method. It is noteworthy that both the PP and
FFT-based methods actually indicate the same STD errors.
This result can be explained by the existing of a theoretical
dependence between the first spectral moment and the first
derivative of the correlation function. The comparison of Figs. 3
and 5 allows one to see different errors arising in the FFT-based
method. This can be attributed to the difference in summation.
In Test 2, standard summation was used, while in Test 3, we
implemented circular summation that brings about nonbiased
estimations.
IV. I MPLEMENTATION OF THE A LGORITHM IN TARA AND
IDRA P ROCESSING AND C OMPARISON W ITH TARA AND
IDRA FFT-BASED A LGORITHM AND THE PP A LGORITHM
In order to check the performance on real data, the algorithm
was implemented in signal processing of the radars, namely,
TARA and IDRA. Table II presents the main parameters of
the radars. The results obtained by the proposed algorithm
were compared with those obtained by the FFT-based algorithm
combined with clipping and implemented in the same systems.
In this section, the implementation of the two algorithms is
described, and the results obtained are discussed.
Implementation of the Algorithms: The adaptive approach
was implemented for off-line processing of the TARA data. For
both the standard FFT-based TARA processing and the off-line
processing, there is a preprocessing stage. At this stage, the
raw radar data are read from binary files and put into a matrix
form where the columns are the samples of each sweep and
the rows are the time series of the signal being processed. The
first step in this preprocessing stage implies performing an
FFT along the columns to obtain the range dependence of the
signal. This preliminary step is necessary because in frequency
120 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 49, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

Fig. 4. Errors in estimation of the (upper row) mean Doppler velocity and (lower row) Doppler spectrum width for Gaussian Doppler spectrum under different
SNRs. The left columns introduce bias, while the right columns introduce STD. The errors are normalized by the Nyquist frequency ΩN . The mean normalized
frequency is equal to 0.16, and the normalized spectrum width is equal to 0.3.

modulation-continuous wave (FM-CW) radars, unlike in pulse
radars, the range information is contained in the frequency
domain. In addition, the mean of each row is removed, which is
equivalent to suppressing the 0-Doppler bin and consequently
suppressing the signals from static ground clutter.
The first step in the FFT-based algorithm is to perform an
FFT on the rows in order to obtain the Doppler spectrum
and to calculate the power per a Doppler bin. Doppler cells
below the preestablished clipping level (usually 10 dB above
the estimated noise threshold) are then eliminated in order to
diminish the influence of noise spikes in the calculation of
the Doppler parameters. The Doppler parameters are there-
fore calculated using only the Doppler cells with the power
above the clipping level. As for the adaptive algorithm, the
Doppler parameters are calculated directly from the time series
using (9) and (10) developed in Section II. The reflectivity is
calculated by subtracting the estimated noise power measured
a priori from the measured signal power and then applying the
calibration factor.
The implementation of the adaptive signal processing and
the PP signal processing in IDRA is done off-line as well. It
is only slightly different from the TARA processing. In the
first place, the raw data in the raw data files in IDRA were
windowed with a 2-D Hamming window in order to decrease
the sidelobes when FFT is performed. Therefore, the first step
of the adaptive processing is to multiply the rows by an inverse
Hamming window to compensate the windowing. FFT is then
performed along the columns to get the range information
and the subtraction of the mean of the rows to suppress the
0-Doppler as in TARA. The rest of the processing is analogous
to that of TARA.
As for FFT-based processing in IDRA, a well-known issue
is the presence of internal distortion lines at all ranges at a
particular Doppler frequency [6]. This distortion lines are
PINSKY et al.: APPLICATION OF A SIMPLE ADAPTIVE ESTIMATOR
Fig. 5. Dependences of (left) the bias and (right) the STD of the estimated mean velocity on SNR. The normalized mean velocity and the spectrum width are
equal to 0.16 and 0.1, respectively. The sample lengths are equal to (upper row) 512 and (lower row) 32.
effectively removed using polarimetric Doppler filtering. How-
ever, the adaptive Doppler processing algorithm cannot take
advantage of polarimetry. Therefore, to ensure a fair compar-
ison, the polarimetric Doppler filtering was removed from the
standard data processing.
The number of real operations required to obtain the Doppler
parameters using the FFT method is roughly 6N log2 N , where
N is the number of sweeps used. The number of operations
required for the adaptive processing is just 41N . Therefore, the
adaptive processing is much faster, particularly when a large
number of sweeps are used to compute the parameters. This
represents a significant advantage in the case when real-time
processing is required. At the same time, the PP algorithm has
the largest computational efficiency since it requires 12N real
operations only.
Data Analysis and Comparison of the Algorithms: Two
sets of measurements are presented as an illustration of the
algorithms’ capabilities. The data sets shown in Fig. 6 were
obtained by TARA during a clear air measurement, which is
121
the most demanding in terms of sensitivity. The measurement
was performed using the horizontal polarization in the high-
resolution (3-m) mode. The maximum Doppler velocity was
22.7 m/s. In Fig. 7, a light-rain event measured by IDRA on
August 3, 2008 at 12:00 P. M . UTC is shown. This measurement
was performed using the standard IDRA resolution (30 m). The
maximum Doppler velocity was 9.5 m/s. The example offers an
interesting case of aliasing, i.e., the actual Doppler velocity of
the atmospheric scatterers exceeded the unambiguous interval
of the system. This showcases the performance of each algo-
rithm in the case of aliasing.
In the three algorithms, it is assumed that the atmospheric
signals are stationary and symmetrical with respect to the mean
Doppler velocity. However, atmospheric signals can be consid-
ered stationary just for a limited period of time, after which
statistical characteristics of a signal change. For example, in
the case of TARA which is an S-band radar, the signals are
considered to remain stationary for a period of approximately
half a second (512 samples with a sweep period of 1 ms).
122 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 49, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011
TABLE II
S YSTEM S PECIFICATIONS
That limitation constitutes a serious drawback for the adaptive
processing. Equation (3) shows that the mean Doppler velocity
depends only on the phase of parameter a while the Doppler
spectrum width depends on the modulus of a. While the phase
tends relatively fast to the asymptotic value and, therefore, a
good estimation of the mean Doppler velocity can be obtained,
this is not true for the modulus of a. Small errors in estima-
tion of modulus lead to significant errors in estimation of the
Doppler spectrum width, particularly in the case of a narrow
spectrum. As a result, in most cases, an overestimation of the
Doppler spectrum width was observed, particularly for narrow
spectra, as can be seen in Fig. 2.
Since the adaptive processor filters out most of the noise that
contaminates the measurements, the performance of the adap-
tive processor is substantially better than that of the FFT-based
algorithm without clipping. However, if the latter algorithm is
combined with clipping, the performances are similar, since the
clipping of the signal acts as efficiently as an adaptive filter. In
case the SNR is very low, or the spectrum is wide, i.e., all the
Doppler cells are below the clipping level, the estimation of the
Doppler parameters cannot be performed using the FFT-based
method, whereas the adaptive method is still able to estimate the
mean Doppler velocity (see Table III and Fig. 8). The areas that
were completely suppressed by the noise clipping are marked
white in Figs. 6 and 7. Moreover, due to the suppression of the
Doppler cells that are below the clipping level in the FFT-based
algorithm, there is an underestimation of the signal power and,
hence, of the reflectivity. This can be clearly seen in Fig. 9,
where the variance of the scattering plot is much higher for
lower values of reflectivity than for higher ones.
Interestingly, the mean Doppler velocity in the low-
reflectivity areas retrieved by the adaptive processing is 0
(Fig. 7), whereas the velocity retrieved by the FFT-based al-
gorithm is the expected one. This could be due to the influence
of the aforementioned distortion lines present in the IDRA. If
that were the case, it would mean that the adaptive processing is
less robust to artifacts. At the same time, the Doppler spectrum
width is correctly retrieved by the adaptive processing in areas
where there is aliasing, whereas it is not the case for the
FFT-based processing. This is more clearly seen in Fig. 10,
where the differences between the two Doppler spectrum
widths are plotted in a plan position indicator (PPI).
The comparison of the results of signal processing of IDRA
estimated by the proposed method, the standard FFT, and the
classical PP algorithm is shown in Fig 7. The analysis shows
that the difference between the fields is very small. The dif-
ference between the mean velocities does not exceed 20 cm/s.
This is not surprising since the measurements were performed
for quite strong signals with SNR > 10−20 dB. At such SNR,
all the algorithms provide close values. It is noteworthy that, at
very low SNR when the adaptive filter has no time to form,
the values provided by the proposed and the PP algorithms
should be expected to lead to close results as follows from (9).
However, when the spectrum width is estimated, the PP algo-
rithm often shows larger nonrealistic values (up to 10 m/s) as
compared with the algorithm proposed in this paper. This fact
PINSKY et al.: APPLICATION OF A SIMPLE ADAPTIVE ESTIMATOR
Fig. 6. Data sets obtained by the two algorithms: (left column) Adaptive processing and (right column) FFT-based processing. The white areas in the FFT-based
processing are areas where information is suppressed as a result of clipping.
reflects the advantages of the presented method over the PP
method.
V. C ONCLUSION AND D ISCUSSION
A new method based on an adaptive procedure and aimed at
calculation of the Doppler spectrum parameters has been pre-
123
sented. The essential feature of this method is the presence of
a feedback connection which defines the adaptation of the filter
(change of frequency characteristics and amplification coeffi-
cient) for a particular signal. The method provides estimation of
the Doppler spectrum in the parametric form. The performance
of the new method was compared with the traditional PP and
FFT-based methods. The comparison shows that including both
124 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 49, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

Fig. 7. IDRA parameters measured during a light-rain event. The left column presents reflectivity, the mean Doppler velocity, and the Doppler spectrum width
retrieved by the adaptive processing algorithm. The middle column presents the values of the same parameters retrieved by the standard FFT processing algorithm.
The right column presents the same parameters retrieved by the PP algorithm.

TABLE III filter adaptation and noise filtering into the estimation proce-
P ROCESSING PARAMETERS ( THE SNR WAS S ET AT 0.09)
dure results in much smaller errors in the estimation of the mean
Doppler frequency and the spectrum width. This improvement
is particularly pronounced under small-SNR conditions. How-
ever, the presented method provides comparable performance
with the FFT-based algorithm combined with signal clipping
procedure.
The two main advantages of the proposed method were
found. First, the number of required operations is proportional
to the sample length N and is thus significantly smaller
compared to the FFT algorithms (where it proportional to
N log2 N ). It makes the new method faster which is important
in real-time applications. Second, the proposed method is
able to estimate the mean Doppler velocity with low bias
and variance even in the case of very low SNRs, where the
FFT method is not applicable for estimation since the signal
is below the clipping level. It is particularly important when
PINSKY et al.: APPLICATION OF A SIMPLE ADAPTIVE ESTIMATOR 125

Fig. 8. Synthetic signal spectrum with and without noise. The clipping level
used in the FFT-based processing was 10 dB above the noise floor. The
signal was completely suppressed by the FFT-based algorithm, whereas the
adaptive processing algorithm was still able to determine the mean Doppler
velocity.

Fig. 10. PPI with the differences in the Doppler spectrum widths obtained by
the adaptive processing and by the FFT-based processing.

since the second-order complex autoregressive series generally

has nonsymmetrical spectrum. It will enable to determine in
which cases the atmospheric signal spectrum is bimodal, as
the second-order complex autoregressive series spectrum can
be one- or two- modal. This bimodality can be formed by the
existence of signals of different nature. In particular, bimodality
detection can help to separate and reject ground clutter signals.
Obtaining this kind of information from FFT-estimated spectra
for weak signals is much more complicated.
In addition, since the model of autoregression of higher order
corresponds to a higher order filter that has a more rectangular
shape of the amplitude-frequency characteristic, utilization of
the high-order algorithm can lead to even more efficient noise
filtering than that reported in the present study.
Fig. 9. Scattering plots for a light-rain event measured by IDRA: Reflectivity
measured by the FFT method versus the adaptive method.
A PPENDIX A
measurements are carried out in nondrizzling weak stratiform M EAN S QUARE OF AN AUTOREGRESSIVE
clouds or in clear air conditions, when the radar reflectivity S PECTRUM W IDTH
does not exceed −30 dBZ. The spectrum of a complex autoregressive process Zt+1 =
The major drawback of the proposed method is a certain aZt + εt+1 is represented as [18]
overestimation of the Doppler spectrum width due to slow
spectrum width convergence to the asymptotic level. As the σε2 σε2
simplest AR data model, we assume that the signal is repre- Fz (ω) = = (A1)
|1−a exp(−iω)|2 1+|a|2 −2|a| cos(ω−Λ)
sented by a complex autoregressive series of the first order (an
adaptive PP method). Despite its simplicity, the algorithm is
highly effective and has serious advantages as compared to the where a = |a|eiΛ . The spectrum variance is denoted as a ratio
traditional algorithms used in radar meteorology. We believe between the two integrals
that this algorithm is the first in the family of parametric adap-
Λ+π π
(ω − Λ)2 Fz (ω)dω ω 2 dω
tive estimators that can be successfully applied in radar mete- 1+|a|2 −2|a| cos ω
  Λ−π −π
orology. For example, utilization of the second-order complex (ω−Λ)2 = = π .
autoregressive series as a model of weak meteorological signals
Λ+π
dω
Fz (ω)dω 1+|a|2 −2|a| cos ω
will provide additional information about the signal spectrum. Λ−π −π
It will enable to correctly evaluate the spectrum asymmetry, (A2)
126 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 49, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

To calculate the integrals in (A2), ω 2 can be expanded into a samples. For the stationary case solution, we obtain
Fourier series within the range [−π, π]    
2
P∞ σz2 + σμ2
∞
|Ẑt | =
π2  (−1)k+1 cos(kω) ∞ 1 − (1 − P∞ )2 |a∞ |2
ω2 = −4 . (A3)
3 k2 2P∞ (1 − P∞ )|a||a∞ |  ∗ 
k=1
+ Ẑt Zt . (B4)
1 − (1 − P∞ )2 |a∞ |2
The utilization of (A3) and the tabulated integral [4]
Using mutual substitutions (B2)–(B4) and the last equation

π from (B1), one can obtain |a∞ | = |a|. Since the estimation
cos(kω)dω π
2
= |a|k (A4) of the spectrum width is determined by the absolute value
1 + |a| − 2|a| cos ω 1 − |a|2
−π of the complex number a, the estimation is asymptotically
nonbiased.
leads to the equation for the spectrum variance
∞

  π2 (−1)k+1 k ACKNOWLEDGMENT
(ω − Λ)2 = −4 |a| . (A5)
3 k2 The authors would like to thank IRCTR for providing
k=1
the data.

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PINSKY et al.: APPLICATION OF A SIMPLE ADAPTIVE ESTIMATOR
Mark Pinsky received the M.S. degree from
the Moscow Telecommunication Institute, Moscow,
Russia, in 1975 and the Ph.D. degree from the
Central Aerological Observatory (CAO), Moscow,
in 1992. His Ph.D. thesis is entitled “Processing of
Doppler meteorological signals.”
From 1975 to 1992, he was a Scientific Researcher
with the Departments of Upper Atmosphere and
Radar Meteorology, CAO. He is currently a Senior
Scientist with the Institute of Earth Sciences, The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel,
where he has been working in the field of cloud physics and cloud modeling
since 1992. His major research interests lie in the fields of cloud physics, cloud
modeling, microphysical processes in clouds, atmospheric turbulence, theory
of turbulence, radar meteorology, signal processing, and continuous symmetry
measure.
Jordi Figueras i Ventura received the M.S. degree
in telecommunications engineering from the Tech-
nical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, in
2004 and the Ph.D. degree from the International
Research Centre for Telecommunications and Radar
(IRCTR), Delft University of Technology, Delft,
The Netherlands, in 2009. His Ph.D. thesis is enti-
tled “Design of a High Resolution X-band Doppler
Polarimetric Weather Radar.”
While working toward his M.S. degree, he spent
one year with the IRCTR from 2003 to 2004, where
he became a Research Fellow in 2004 to develop a proposal for a new
P-band synthetic aperture radar system. He was with the U.K. Met Office for
a year, implementing polarimetric quantitative precipitation estimation (Pol-
QPE) algorithms. Since 2010, he has been with Meteo France as a Postdoctoral
Researcher, implementing and evaluating the performance of Pol-QPE algo-
rithms within the French Weather Radar Network.
Tobias Otto received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in
information and communication technology from
the Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz,
Germany, in 2005, where he is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree, investigating the influence
of propagation effects on polarimetric weather radar
measurements.
Since 2009, he has been with the Group of Re-
mote Sensing of the Environment, Delft University
of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands, working on
an X-band polarimetric weather radar, with focus on
retrieval of microphysical and precipitation parameters.
Mr. Otto is a member of the German VDE/ITG Commission on Wave
Propagation (FA 7.5) and the American Meteorological Society.
127
Alexander Sterkin received the M.Sc. degree from
the Moscow State Institute of Radio-Engineering,
Electronics and Automation, Moscow, Russia, in
1994, specializing in biomedical electronics and
equipment, and the Ph.D. degree in brain research
from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot,
Israel, in 2002.
For several years, he was with the Central Aero-
logical Observatory, Moscow, focusing his research
on Doppler radar data analysis. For a number of
years, he was collaborating with the Institute of Earth
Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, developing
software for visualization and analysis of remote sensing information and cloud
modeling results. He is currently a Senior Application Engineer with Intel
Corporation, Israel, working on multicore software optimization.
Alexander Khain received the Ph.D. degree from
the Moscow Institute of Experimental Meteorology,
Obninsk, Russia, in 1975.
From 1975 to 1991, he was a Senior Researcher
with the Scientific Hydrometeorological Center,
Moscow, Russia. Since 1991, he has been a Professor
with the Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. His aca-
demic interests lie in the fields of cloud physics,
theoretical microphysics, cloud–aerosol interaction,
tropical meteorology, tropical cyclones, processes in
the atmospheric boundary layer, convection, breezes, and radar meteorology.
Herman W. J. Russchenberg received the Ph.D.
degree from the Delft University of Technology (TU
Delft), Deft, The Netherlands.
He is currently a Professor with the Chair of
Remote Sensing of the Environment, TU Delft. He is
also currently with the International Research Centre
for Telecommunications and Radar, TU Delft. He
specializes in the field of atmospheric remote sensing
and studies rainfall issues and the role of clouds and
aerosols in the climate systems.