This paper presents the development of a PC-based microwave five-port reflectometer for the determination of moisture content in oil palm fruits. The reflectometer was designed to measure both the magnitude and phase of the reflection coefficient of any passive microwave device. The stand-alone reflectometer consists of a PC, a microwave source, diode detectors and an analog to digital converte...

Tissue dehydration results in three major types of exsiccosis--hyper-, hypo-, or isonatraemia. All three types entail alterations of salt concentrations leading to impaired biochemical processes, and can finally cause severe morbidity. The aim of our study was to demonstrate the feasibility of a microwave-based sensor technology for the non-invasive measurement of the hydration status. Electrom...

Long-term snow depth/snow water equivalent (SWE) products derived from passive microwave remote sensing data are fundamental for climatological and hydrological studies. However, the temporal continuity of the products is affected by the updating or replacement of passive microwave sensors or satellite platforms. In this study, we inter-calibrated brightness temperature (Tb) data obtained from ...

Due to the crucial role of clouds, the knowledge of the horizontal and vertical distribution and the optical properties of globally distributed clouds is of fundamental importance to the understanding of the Earth radiation and heat balance, and of weather and climate of the atmosphere. Measurements of radiation from space play a fundamental role in helping us to understand how radiation depend...

The combination of measurements from different satellite instruments for the estimation of precipitation is a promising way to overcome the shortcomings of measurements from a single data source. EUMETSAT realised the Multi-sensor Precipitation Estimate (MPE) in order to combine the advantages of the high temporal and comparably high spatial resolution of a geostationary IR sensor with the high...

It is widely accepted that wireless reading for in-situ mapping of pressure under high-temperature environments is the most feasible method, because it is not subject to frequent heterogeneous jointing failures and electrical conduction deteriorating, or even disappearing, under heat load. However, in this article, we successfully demonstrate an in-situ pressure sensor with wire interrogation f...

A novel symmetrical split ring resonator (SSRR) based microwave sensor with spurline filters for detecting and characterizing the properties of solid materials has been developed. Due to the weak perturbation in the interaction of material under test (MUT) and planar microwave sensor, spurline filters were embedded to the SSRR microwave sensor which effectively enhanced Q-factor with suppressin...

Conventional fiber Bragg grating sensors have a few limitations, such as limited interrogation resolution and speed and difficulty in separating different measurands. In this article, microwave photonic techniques applied to fiber Bragg grating sensors to improve the interrogation resolution and speed are discussed. Experimental results to validate the techniques are provided.

The basic operation principles of non-invasive microwave sensors are summarized in this work, with specific emphasis on health-care systems applications. Design criteria to achieve reliable results in terms of biological parameters detection are specifically highlighted. In particular, the importance to adopt accurate frequency models for the complex permittivity (in terms of both dielectric co...

The SeaWinds on QuikScat and ERS-1/2 scatterometers measure the radar response of the Earth’s surface with high spatialand temporal-resolution. The data collected by these space-borne active-microwave sensors are used to detect periods of surface melting in the Antarctic iceshelves. A description of a statistical melt-detection algorithm is given and the results are shown and compared to other ...