title: Prototyping a GNSS-Based Passive Radar for UAVs: An Instrument to Classify the Water Content Feature of Lands.
abstract: Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) broadcast signals for positioning and navigation, which can be also employed for remote sensing applications. Indeed, the satellites of any GNSS can be seen as synchronized sources of electromagnetic radiation, and specific processing of the signals reflected back from the ground can be used to estimate the geophysical properties of the Earth's surface. Several experiments have successfully demonstrated GNSS-reflectometry (GNSS-R), whereas new applications are continuously emerging and are presently under development, either from static or dynamic platforms. GNSS-R can be implemented at a low cost, primarily if small devices are mounted on-board unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which today can be equipped with several types of sensors for environmental monitoring. So far, many instruments for GNSS-R have followed the GNSS bistatic radar architecture and consisted of custom GNSS receivers, often requiring a personal computer and bulky systems to store large amounts of data. This paper presents the development of a GNSS-based sensor for UAVs and small manned aircraft, used to classify lands according to their soil water content. The paper provides details on the design of the major hardware and software components, as well as the description of the results obtained through field tests.
authors.affiliation: Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB), Via P.C. Boggio 61, 10138 Torino, Italy. trogliagamba@ismb.it.
authors.forename: Micaela Troglia
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Gamba
authors.affiliation: Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB), Via P.C. Boggio 61, 10138 Torino, Italy. marucco@ismb.it.
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Marucco
authors.affiliation: Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB), Via P.C. Boggio 61, 10138 Torino, Italy. pini@ismb.it.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pini
authors.affiliation: Politecnico di Torino - Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy. sabrina.ugazio@polito.it.
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ugazio
authors.affiliation: Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB), Via P.C. Boggio 61, 10138 Torino, Italy. falletti@ismb.it.
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Falletti
authors.affiliation: Politecnico di Torino - Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy. letizia.lopresti@polito.it.
authors.forename: Letizia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lo Presti
keywords: GNSS bistatic radar; GNSS-reflectometry; UAV; prototyping