Advanced Microwave Camera for 3-D Imaging of Water Channels in a Porous Medium

This advanced development program is devoted to adapting SATIMO's proprietary Microwave Camera design and the associated proprietary microwave imaging codes based on Augumented Diffraction Tomography (ADT) and the Volumetric Electric Field Integral Equation (VEFIE) to provide efficient 3-D imaging of water movement along perferred flow channels during snowmelt. The customized Microwave Camera will utilize an array of electrically-small probes to provide the requisite Nyquist-sampled measurements of the scattered microwave signals at sampling rtes of 1000 points per second or higher; the advanced ADT code will provide quasi-real time qualitative 3-D microwave images of water channels having diameters of 0.5 cm to 10.0 cm or larger in the 0.5 m^3 to 1.0 m^3 volume under test, and the advanced VEFIE code will provide efficient quantitative 3-D images "off-line". Model simulations will be performed 1) to demonstrate the basic operating principals of the 3-D imaging system consisting of the Microwave Camera and the ADT and VEFIE imaging codes and 2) to determine critical design parameters and expected performance envelopes for the Phase II prototype system. One of SATIMO's existing Microwave Cameras will be used to conduct preliminary imaging sensitivity experiments for known water channels in a simulated porous medium in order to expedite the preliminary design process for the customized camera.