Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2018-2019)

The York University and COM DEV team has previously worked together on an NSERC Engage grant to develop a software defined radio (SDR) spaceborne Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver. The current application follows-on by proposing the development of a prototype SDR GNSS receiver capable of tracking GNSS signals reflected from the Earth's surface and to distinguish variations in soil moisture content. COM DEV sees the significant potential of a future nanosatellite / microsatellite mission carrying such a commercialized payload for low-cost, near-real-time, regional or global near-surface soil moisture content determination, and the benefits for a host of users, including climate scientist, farmers, and policy-makers.x000D
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The primary scientific issue is the ability to remotely sense near-surface soil moisture variations with reflected GNSS signals. Given the complexity of this problem, the goal will be to only distinguish differences in signal returns for different soil moisture content, rather than to make calibrated estimates.x000D
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The specific research problems are 1) identiying the specifications and components for such a GNSS reflectometry system, including: antennas, RD front-end, GNSS receiver components, and measurement processing algorithms; 2) designing the FPGA-based SDR GNSS reflectometry receiver; and 3) testing and tuning the developed system.x000D
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The potential value of the resulting prototype GNSS reflectometry receiver for soil moisture content could be a commercializable space product for COM DEV to sell domestically and for the export market. The York University partnership with COM DEV offers the potential to develop a family of new spaceborne satellite navigation products, as well as services.x000D
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