Radar Backscattering Characterization of Soil Surface: Comparisons between Backscattering Models and Indoor Microwave Measurements

In order to explore the backscatter characteristics of bare soil, we conducted indoor microwave measurements, and compared the experimental results with surface backscattering model: Dubois and AIEM. The effects of surface parameters such as root mean square height, soil moisture content, and system parameters such as incident angle and polarization mode on radar microwave backscattering characteristics was analyzed, and revealed the law of radar backscattering coefficient changing with these parameters. The comparison with the surface models showed that when the RMS height is greater than 1 cm, the measured value have good consistency with AIEM, which indicates the great potential of the indoor microwave system in model verification.