The Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (IWRAP) is a dual-frequency radar developed by MIRSL that is installed routinely on the NOAA WP-3D research aircraft. Primarily designed to study the signature of the ocean surface under wind forcing, it scans conically below the aircraft.
Two radars (one C-band and one Ku-band) scan at incidence angles usually between 30° and 50°. Each radar is capable of implementing up to four simultaneous beams, however, two simultaneous beams per radar is the normal mode of operation. The radar beamwidths vary depending upon the incidence angle, but are typically in the range of 5–15°. Both V and H polarizations are available for both transmit and receive and are selected based on mission requirements. Past missions have taken IWRAP to the Gulf of Mexico and Carribean for flights through tropical cyclones and to the Alaskan and Eastern Canadian coast for flights through high-latitude winter storms.
Dvorsky, Jason, "Implementation of Dual-Polarization on an Airborne Scatterometer and Preliminary Data Quality" (2012). Masters Theses. Paper 743.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/743
McManus, John J., "Implementing Pulse Compression in the IWRAP Airborne Doppler Radar/Scatterometer" (2009). Masters Theses. Paper 237.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/237
Stephen J. Frasier and Tao Chu.
Real-time airborne radar wind-profiling algorithm for the integrated wind and rain airborne profiler.
Williamsburg, VA, 2009.
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Chu, Tao, "Operation And Improvement Of The IWRAP Airborne Doppler Radar/Scatterometer" (2008). Masters Theses. Paper 81.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/81
D. Esteban Fernandez, J. R. Carswell, S. Frasier, P. S. Chang, P. G. Black, and F. D. Marks.
Dual-polarized c- and ku-band ocean backscatter response to hurricane-force winds.
Journal of Geophysical Research, 111(C8), 2006.
[ DOI ]
Daniel Esteban Fernandez, "Remote sensing of the ocean and the atmospheric boundary layer within tropical cyclones" (2005). Electronic Doctoral Dissertations for UMass Amherst. Paper AAI3163665.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3163665
D.E. Fernandez, E.M. Kerr, A. Castells, J.R. Carswell, S.J. Frasier, P.S. Chang, P.G. Black, and F.D. Marks.
IWRAP: the imaging wind and rain airborne profiler for remote sensing of the ocean and the atmospheric boundary layer within tropical cyclones.
Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on, 43(8):1775-1787, 2005.
[ DOI ]
Outside the window of the NOAA WP-3D during Hurricane Earl (2010)