beam_width: Calculate radar beam width

In bioRad: Biological Analysis and Visualization of Weather Radar Data

Calculate radar beam width

Description

Calculates the width of a radar beam as a function of range and beam angle.

Usage

beam_width(range, beam_angle = 1)

Arguments

range	Numeric. Range, i.e. distance from the radar antenna, in m.
beam_angle	Numeric. Beam opening angle in degrees, typically the angle between the half-power (-3 dB) points of the main lobe.

Value

numeric. Beam width in m, typically the full width at half maximum (FWHM).

See Also

Other beam_functions: beam_distance(), beam_height(), beam_profile(), beam_profile_overlap(), beam_range(), gaussian_beam_profile()

Examples

#' # Beam width in meters at 10 km range:
beam_width(10000)

# Define ranges from 0 to 1000000 m (100 km), in steps of 100 m:
range <- seq(0, 100000, 100)

# Plot the beam width as a function of range:
plot(range, beam_width(range), ylab = "beam width [m]", xlab = "range [m]")

bioRad documentation built on Aug. 29, 2025, 5:14 p.m.