scholarly journals Frequency-Agile FFT Spectrometer for Microwave Remote Sensing Applications

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 490
Author(s):  
Jonas Hagen ◽  
Andres Luder ◽  
Axel Murk ◽  
Niklaus Kämpfer

We report on a Fast Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FFTS) that provides larger bandwidth by fast local oscillator switching of the base-band converter. We demonstrate that this frequency scanning technique is suited for atmospheric remote sensing and conduct measurements of atmospheric ozone using the WIRA-C (WInd RAdiometer for Campaigns) Doppler wind radiometer. The comparison of our measurements to an adjusted atmospheric and instrumental model exposes no systematic biases due to the switching procedure in the measured spectra. It further shows that the combination of high spectral resolution with large bandwidth yields good measurement response to stratospheric and mesospheric ozone from approximately a 20 km to 70 km altitude with a resolution of 7 km in the lower stratosphere to 20 km in the mesosphere. We conclude that low-cost, low-power software-defined radio hardware designed for communications applications is very well suited for a variety of spectroscopic applications, including ozone monitoring. This allows the design of low-cost, multi-purpose instruments for atmospheric remote sensing and thus has a direct impact on future radiometer developments and their adoption in remote sensing campaigns and networks.

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 780
Author(s):  
Kazunori Takahashi ◽  
Takashi Miwa

The paper discusses a way to configure a stepped-frequency continuous wave (SFCW) radar using a low-cost software-defined radio (SDR). The most of high-end SDRs offer multiple transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) channels, one of which can be used as the reference channel for compensating the initial phases of TX and RX local oscillator (LO) signals. It is same as how commercial vector network analyzers (VNAs) compensate for the LO initial phase. These SDRs can thus acquire phase-coherent in-phase and quadrature (I/Q) data without additional components and an SFCW radar can be easily configured. On the other hand, low-cost SDRs typically have only one transmitter and receiver. Therefore, the LO initial phase has to be compensated and the phases of the received I/Q signals have to be retrieved, preferably without employing an additional receiver and components to retain the system low-cost and simple. The present paper illustrates that the difference between the phases of TX and RX LO signals varies when the LO frequency is changed because of the timing of the commencement of the mixing. The paper then proposes a technique to compensate for the LO initial phases using the internal RF loopback of the transceiver chip and to reconstruct a pulse, which requires two streaming: one for the device under test (DUT) channel and the other for the internal RF loopback channel. The effect of the LO initial phase and the proposed method for the compensation are demonstrated by experiments at a single frequency and sweeping frequency, respectively. The results show that the proposed method can compensate for the LO initial phases and ultra-wideband (UWB) pulses can be reconstructed correctly from the data sampled by a low-cost SDR.


Clay Minerals ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. P. Nitzsche ◽  
J. B. Percival ◽  
J. K. Torrance ◽  
J. A. R. Stirling ◽  
J. T. Bowen

AbstractEleven Oxisols with high clay contents, 2.6–59.7 wt.% Fe2O3, and containing hematite, goethite, magnetite and maghemite, from São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Goiás, Brazil, were studied for the purpose of microwave remote sensing applications in the 0.3 to 300 GHz range. Of special interest are: the pseudosand effect caused by Fe-oxide cementation of clusters of soil particles; the mineralogy; and whether the soil magnetic susceptibility affected by ferromagnetic magnetite and maghemite interferes with microwave propagation. Quantitative mineralogical analyses were conducted using X-ray diffraction with Rietveld refinement. Visible, near infrared and short wave infrared spectroscopic analyses were used to characterize the samples qualitatively for comparison with published spectral radiometry results. Quartz (3–88%), hematite (2–36%) and gibbsite (1–40%) occurred in all soils, whereas kaolinite (2–70%) and anatase (2–13%) occurred in nine samples. Ilmenite (1–8%) was found in eight soils and goethite (2–39%) in seven. Of the ferromagnetic minerals, maghemite occurred in seven soils (1–13%) and three contained magnetite (<2%). These results will be applied to the interpretation of the effect of Fe oxides, particularly the ferromagnetic oxides, on microwave interaction with high-Fe soils, with ultimate application to the monitoring of soil water content by microwave remote sensing.


Author(s):  
R. A. Oliveira ◽  
E. Khoramshahi ◽  
J. Suomalainen ◽  
T. Hakala ◽  
N. Viljanen ◽  
...  

The use of drones and photogrammetric technologies are increasing rapidly in different applications. Currently, drone processing workflow is in most cases based on sequential image acquisition and post-processing, but there are great interests towards real-time solutions. Fast and reliable real-time drone data processing can benefit, for instance, environmental monitoring tasks in precision agriculture and in forest. Recent developments in miniaturized and low-cost inertial measurement systems and GNSS sensors, and Real-time kinematic (RTK) position data are offering new perspectives for the comprehensive remote sensing applications. The combination of these sensors and light-weight and low-cost multi- or hyperspectral frame sensors in drones provides the opportunity of creating near real-time or real-time remote sensing data of target object. We have developed a system with direct georeferencing onboard drone to be used combined with hyperspectral frame cameras in real-time remote sensing applications. The objective of this study is to evaluate the real-time georeferencing comparing with post-processing solutions. Experimental data sets were captured in agricultural and forested test sites using the system. The accuracy of onboard georeferencing data were better than 0.5&amp;thinsp;m. The results showed that the real-time remote sensing is promising and feasible in both test sites.


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