Three-antennas FMCW Radar for Self-consistent Snowpack Monitoring

Microwave radars have the potential to monitor the internal structure of the snowpack, delivering real-time and non-destructive measurements. Recently, an innovative radar architecture able to identify some of the most important snowpack parameters without external aids has been demonstrated. A key point of this new architecture is the use of two independent receiving antennas, and one transmitting antenna. This paper presents the comparison between two different implementations, either based on one physical antennas miming two receiving antennas, or based directly on two physical receiving antennas. Experimental results are reported to discuss the different advantages and disadvantages.