Introduction, overview, and status of the Microwave Autonomous Copter System (MACS)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capabilities are evolving rapidly, from technical, regulatory and operational standpoints. It is likely that these platforms will begin to offer new alternatives for agricultural and other applications needing high spatial resolution data and delivered in near real-time. This paper presents an overview of the Microwave Autonomous Copter System (MACS) currently under development at the Center for Hydrology, Soil Climatology and Remote Sensing (HSCaRS), Alabama A & M University. An L-band (1.4-GHz), horizontal polarization, radiometer is one of the sensors that has been proposed for MACS. The UAV helicopter system will be used for monitoring the temporal changes of soil moisture as a function of depth, even in the presence of vegetative covers. These measurements could greatly improve our understanding of soil moisture under vegetation covers that are necessary for completing algorithms of global energy and water balance products for examining variations in weather and climate. The paper describes the UAV helicopter, the microwave system and current status of the development