Airborne Dual-Band Microwave Radar System For Snow Thickness Measurement

An ultrawide-band radar system was developed to measure snow thickness from an airborne platform. It is a second-generation device, improving upon a system that was deployed to Antarctica in 2018-2019. The radar operates from 2.7-10.7 GHz and from 10-18 GHz for a theoretical resolution of less than 2 cm. It was deployed to the Grand Mesa National Forest in Colorado on a Twin Otter DHC-6 aircraft in March of 2019. The system successfully mapped the air-snow and snow-ground interfaces as well as some internal layering over both vegetative and non-vegetative areas. In this paper, we discuss the design, development and deployment of this radar and show some preliminary results.