Radiometers

ARIEL L-band microwave radiometer

Description

For large extensions and mobile platforms

ARIEL is a microwave radiometer that can be used for soil moisture remote sensing. It is based on the same technology used by the instrument MIRAS on-board the ESA SMOS satellite mission.

Advantages

  • Large extension can be covered without requiring infrastructure
  • Configuration through web-based user interface
  • To be used on board aircrafts, drones, and ground vehicles.
  • Compatible with most common GIS software

ARIEL series

Applications

Environment

  • Soil and soil moisture variability
  • Sea ice thickness
  • Irrigation planning
  • Land management

Civil Engineering

  • Levee inspection
  • Tunnel and galleries inspection
  • Surface moisture in linear infrastructure

Other

  • Earth Observation, validation of satellite data
  • Telcomm, location of sources of electromagnetic interferences

Main technical specifications

L-band radiometer

  • Central frequency: 1.413 GHz
  • Bandwidth: 20MHz
  • Radiometric accuracy: 1 K at 1 Hz
  • Sampling rate: up to 10 Hz

Processing software

  • RAW data into brightness temperature software included
  • Brightness temperature to soil moisture conversion software optional
  • WGS84 EPSG, 4326 format

Power input

  • Voltage: 12 V
  • Electronics current consumption: 0.5 A
  • Heating system: 1 A (ground and UAV), 4 A (aircraft)

Patch array antenna

  • Dual polarization (H+V)
  • Beamwidth: 37º  (ground version), 37º (UAV), 22º (aircraft)

Positioning

  • GPS, Glonass, Beidou integrated receiver
  • WGS84 EPSG, 4326 format

Data

  • Internal storage
  • Ethernet interface communication

Configuration

  • ARIEL is configurable using a web-based user interface

Weight

  • 6 kg (ground), 3.8 kg (UAV), 15 kg (aircraft)

ARIEL references

Airborne soil moisture determination using a data fusion approach at regional level

Martin, F.; Marchan, J.F.; Aguasca, A.; Vall-llossera, M.; Corbera, J.; Camps, A.; Piles, M.; Pipia, L.; Tarda, A.; Villafranca, A.G.
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2011 IEEE International
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On the use of compact L-band Dicke radiometer (ARIEL) and UAV for soil moisture and salinity map retrieval: 2008/2009 field experiments

Acevo-Herrera, R.; Aguasca, A.; Bosch-Lluis, X.; Camps, A.
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2009 IEEE International, IGARSS 2009
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