Drone-based multiband Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAV-RADAR) for soil moisture assessment

Soil moisture plays a vital role in agriculture, drought management, and flood prevention. It is essential for plant growth and sustainable farming practices. In flood-prone areas, soil's ability to retain water helps absorb excess moisture and reduce runoff, mitigating flood risks. Therefore, effective soil moisture monitoring is crucial for informed irrigation and water management decisions. Various methods exist for measuring soil moisture, both in-situ and remote. In-situ techniques, like volumetric and gravimetric sampling, provide real-time data but are limited to specific locations unless interpolation is applied. On the other hand, remote sensing offers broader spatial coverage but often with lower resolution and accuracy. While remote sensing can validate ground-based data, it is less effective for capturing short-term changes, such as those resulting from irrigation, at fine temporal scales.

To address these challenges, we are developing UAV-RADAR, the first multiband Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mounted on a drone. Unlike conventional SAR platforms (e.g., Sentinel-1), UAV-RADAR provides rapid, high-resolution, and scalable soil moisture data tailored to specific agricultural and environmental contexts. Its customizable flight plans enable detailed pre- and post-treatment analyses, capturing temporal changes with unprecedented flexibility.

In this presentation, we will showcase our current research and development of UAV-RADAR to date, demonstrating its capability to measure soil moisture across diverse soil types, landscapes, and agricultural practices. Using data from proof-of-concept experiments carried out in England and Wales, we will show soil moisture maps and demonstrate their applications. We will highlight use cases, and explore how UAV-RADAR can contribute to initiatives like the International Soil Moisture Network.