PRISM-19

Project Archive

Project Overview 

The overall objective of PRISM is to develop algorithms and techniques to demonstrate that the top ~15cm layer of soil moisture can be remotely sensed using a new state-of-art P-band radiometer capability. Timely soil moisture information on this near-surface layer is critical to improve water management for food production in the face of extreme climate variability. Current satellite technologies are limited to the top ~5cm layer of soil using an L-band radiometer.

The PRISM airborne campaigns involve collecting airborne P-band data together with L-band and/or K-band data, with concurrent ground observations of soil moisture and ancillary data for a diverse range of conditions. The campaigns will be conducted in the Yanco area, with the aims to:

  • develop and evaluate the models for soil moisture retrievals from P- (and L-band) radiometer observations, and
  • develop a downscaling algorithm by combining L- and K-band radiometer observations.

Location of the PRISM-21 project

Aircraft 

Aircraft instruments are typically installed in an underbelly pod or in the wingtips of this aircraft. Aircraft navigation for science is undertaken using a GPS driven 3-axis autopilot together with a cockpit computer display that shows aircraft position relative to planned flight lines using the OziExplorer software. The aircraft also has an OXTS (Oxford Technical Solutions) Inertial plus GPS system (two along-track antennae on the fuselage) for position (georeferencing) and attitude (pitch, roll and heading) interpretation of the data. When combined with measurements from a base station, the RT3003 can give a positional accuracy of 2 cm, roll and pitch accuracy of 0.03° and heading accuracy of 0.1°.

Overview of Data Set 

DS flight: High altitude PLMR_TBh & PKSR_TBh.

DS flight: High altitude PLMR_TBv & PKSR_TBv.

PLEASE NOTE: The following data sets should be acknowledged according to the following:

PRISM-19:

X. Wu, N. Ye, J. Walker, I.-Y. Yeo, T. Jackson, Y. Kerr, E. Kim and A. McGrath. (2019). The P-band Radiometer Inferred Soil Moisture Experiment 2019 WORKPLAN. Monash University, 121.