Power and Performance Analysis for a Small L- Band Total Power Radiometer

This paper presents the power and performance analysis for a portable, ultra-low power and small total power L-band radiometer based on an ARM A8 embedded microprocessor. This study shows a significant tradeoff between power consumption and algorithm performance limiting the processing capability and the system flight time. The processing algorithm based in C was tested for different clock frequencies, ADC sampling speeds and sizes of ADC buffer showing significant variations in power and execution times. In addition high-level software optimizations were applied to reduce the power down to 2 W. The size of the radiometer has been reduced to 30 cm × 30 cm × 10 cm allowing these systems to become portable, low cost, and be carried by small drones to scan a large area.