Passive microwave c-band radiometer prototype for uav applications

The future of agriculture is moving towards a more technological and efficient way to produce food for the world's population. One key resource for that is water. A radiometer design is introduced that will be used to determine the feasibility of an 800g C-Band (6.8 GHz) radiometer for fixed-wing UAVs, giving agronomists a new cutting-edge tool to measure soil and kernel moisture in cereal grain pods. Simulation tools and computer-aided optimization were used to develop multiple design iterations, which were manufactured and measured to assess the performance of the proposed radiometer. A custom HEMT LNA was designed using ADS EM co-simulation, resulting in a 10dB gain and 1dB noise figure. The proposed system design has a theoretical NE Delta T of 0.28 K and a preliminary measured NE Delta T of 0.535K at 36.9ms integration time, respectively.