Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) Receiver Architecture and Practical aspects

Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) consists of a wind profiling radar and co-located acoustic sources. Height profiles of atmospheric temperature are derived based on the principle that sound speed is related to the ambient temperature. The Doppler radar is used to measure the radio refractive index fluctuations induced by the acoustic source that travel with the local speed of sound at a given altitude. As the measured sound speed is a superposition of the actual sound speed and the background wind speed, simultaneous or near simultaneous measurement of the apparent sound speed and the background wind speed is required. The radar receiver needs to be upgraded to accommodate the RASS mode of operation. This paper discusses the receiver architectures and practical aspects of the observation scheme.