A Prototype Ultra-Wideband FMCW Radar for Snow and Soil-Moisture Measurements

An ultra-wideband frequency-modulated-continuous-wave radar was designed and developed at the Remote Sensing Center at the University of Alabama. The radar was deployed to Dome Fuji in East Antarctica for the measurement of near-surface snow accumulation as a part of the ice core drilling site selection effort by the National Institute of Polar Research (Japan) and the Norwegian Polar Institute. The oldest ice is expected to be located in low-accumulation areas of the East Antarctica. The UWB radar is to map near-surface internal layers for estimating snow accumulation over areas surveyed to find an optimum site. The radar operates from 2 to 8 GHz with theoretical range resolution of 2.5 cm. In this paper, the design and development of this radar, as well as some preliminary results, are presented.