Development of a Software-Defined-Radio-Based Radar Platform for Snow Thickness Measurement

This paper presents simulation results for measuring snow thickness using a Software-Defined-Radio (SDR) based radar platform mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The radar operates as a Stepped-Frequency Continuous Wave (SFCW) system with a range frequency of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1-2 \text{GHz}$</tex> and a frequency step size of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{1 5} \mathbf{~ M H z}$</tex>. The simulations are conducted over a 100-meter open area, demonstrating the radar's ability to identify the boundaries between air and snow as well as snow and ground. The system achieves a snow thickness measurement resolution of 11 cm under the assumption of a snow permittivity of 1.75. The algorithms and methods developed in this project will be used for future field-based campaigns for snow thickness retrievals over terrestrial and sea ice covered regions.