Airborne passive radiometer for high resolution soil moisture monitoring

该项目提出了一种测量土壤水分的新技术。在高分辨率下准确了解土壤水分状况，对于可持续的土地和水管理，包括有效的灌溉计划和种植做法，是非常重要的。介绍了一种L、Ku、Ka三个波段的无源多波段土壤水分测量辐射计。该辐射计包括三频共口径天线阵、接收电子设备、数字控制器和数据记录器。该阵列天线包括双极化堆叠贴片单元。波束形成网络形成灵活的波束来扫描地面。敏感的辐射计接收器采用亮度温度下标度，以获得高分辨率。高分辨率被动辐射计将通过去除机械可操纵的笨重和笨重的扫描头来彻底改变空气中的土壤水分监测。

The project proposes to create a novel technology to measure soil moisture. Accurate knowledge of soil moisture profiles at high resolution is important for sustainable land and water management including efficient irrigation scheduling and cropping practices. A passive multi-band soil moisture-measuring radiometer at L-, Ku- and Ka-bands is proposed. The radiometer comprises a three-band shared aperture antenna array, a receiving electronics, a digital controller and a data logger. The array antenna comprises dual polarised stacked patch elements. Beamforming networks form agile beams to scan the ground. Sensitive radiometer receivers apply brightness temperature downscaling for high resolution. The high-resolution passive radiometer would revolutionise airborne soil moisture monitoring by removing the mechanically steerable bulky and heavy scanheads.