Measurements of snow cover using an improved UWB 2–18 GHz airborne radar testbed

An improved UWB airborne radar testbed was developed and implemented to map the air-snow and snow-ice interfaces on marine ice as well as near-surface internal layers on land ice sheets. The system operates in the 2-18 GHz frequency range and was tested onboard the NASA P-3 airborne science laboratory. The radar testbed expands the capabilities of the 2-8 GHz and 12-18 GHz systems previously deployed on NASA Operation IceBridge (OIB) and serves as performance baseline to guide future efforts for the miniaturization and integration of the radar electronics. We collected radar data with the system over various targets in the Arctic and Antarctic. We demonstrate the system's capability to measure snow cover thickness on sea ice at cm-scale with very low range sidelobes and present sample radar images showing the system's ability to map internal snow accumulation layers to depths exceeding 30 m.