C/N0 Inversion For Soil Moisture Estimation

Using Land-reflected Bi-static Radar Measurements

A. Bourkane1, S. Reboul2 , M. Azmani1 , J-B. Choquel2, B. Amami1 , M. Benjelloun2
1. Laboratoire d’Informatique, Système et Télécommunications, Université Abdelmalek
Essaadi, Faculty of sciences and technology, Ancienne Route de l’Aéroport, Km 10, Ziaten.
BP: 416. Tangier, Morocco, Email: abourkane@ensat.ac.ma
2. Laboratoire d’Informatique Signal et Image de la Côte d’Opale,Université du Littoral Côte
d’Opale,Univ Lille Nord de France,50, rue Ferdinand Buisson BP 719 - 62228 Calais Cedex,
France, Email: serge.reboul@univ-littoral.fr

Abstract—Soil moisture can be processed with the difference
of power between a direct and a nadir GNSS signal reflected by
the soil. The estimate carrier to noise ratio C/N0 is a classical
measure of power for the GNSS signals. We show in this paper
that the classical estimate of C/N0 processed for one satellite
depends on the carriers, code and phase delay of the visible
satellites. This dependence decreases the reproducibility of the
measurements. In this paper we propose a non-linear model
that links the power of the satellites with the observations of
correlation obtained for the in phase component of the prompt
local code. This expression takes into account the parameters of
the GNSS signal and allows to improve the reproducibility of
measurements. Unfortunately the expression is non linear and a
particle filter is used to recover the signals amplitudes from the
observations of correlation. In the experimentation the proposed
approach is assessed on synthetic signals in the dynamic and
static case.
Keywords : C/N0 Estimation, Soil moisture, Reflectome-
try.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Soil moisture plays a key role in many applications needing
the characterisation of soil, like hydrology, weather forecast-
ing, climate studies and crop management [5], [6]. A bi-static
GNSS receiver is composed of two antennas. The first antenna
receives the direct signal coming from the satellite of the
GNSS constellation and the nadir antenna the signal reflected
by the soil. For a perfectly flat, dielectric surface, the specular
reflected power is coherent and governed solely by the Fresnel
reflection coefficient of the active region for which power
is reflected. The Fresnel coefficient of reflection is measured
from the difference between the power of the direct signal and
the power of the signal scattered by the soil [8]. It is shown
that microwave radiometry at L band has a high penetration
in soil and the Fresnel coefficient in this case is a function
of soil permittivity [7]. The permittivity associated with this
power difference is processed and soil moisture is estimate
with semi empirical relations proposed in the published works
[9]. The final application of this work is the design of a mobile
instrument (onboard in a car) for soil moisture estimation in
order to monitor wetland [11].
A GNSS receiver can process a measure of C/N0 (carrier to
noise density) that refers to the ratio of the carrier power and
the noise power per unit bandwidth. This measure provides an
indication of the signal power of the tracked satellite and the
noise density as seen by the receiver front end [2]. Using C/N0
to measure the signal power suffers from several limitations.
C/N0 is bandwidth-dependent because there is a correlation
losses associated with band limiting. Furthermore C/N0 value
may also vary due to set up and installation considerations
[1]. Assuming that the spreading code of the GNSS receiver is
synchronised, C/N0 is calculated with the measures provided
by the in-phase and quadrature accumulators. Unfortunately
it can be shown that this measure depends on the inter-
correlation residual noise associated with the visible satellite
constellation. The estimate of C/N0 is indeed a function of the
code and carriers of the visible satellites [10].
We assume that we realise several measures of soil moisture
with the same material and at different times. In order to
have the reproducibility of signal power measurements it is
necessary to take into account the codes, the delays of code
and the carriers of the visible satellites. These parameters are
used in the definition of the model that links the estimate C/N0
for each satellite with the direct and reflected signal powers
of the satellites.
In this paper we propose a direct model defined in a statistical
point of view, for a signal quantified on one bit. This model
is defined for the visible satellites and is non linear. It takes
into account the Doppler frequency, phase and code delay of
the satellite. In our approach the message of navigation is
supposed to be known so the proposed estimator is a data-
aided estimator. We propose a strategy of inversion of the
model in order to derive the SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)
of each satellite as seen by the receiver front end. In our
approach we use a particle filter that link the observed value
of correlation to the amplitude of the received signal. The
advantage of the approach is that it allows to invert the problem
and to provide with the state equation a dynamic model of
evolution of the parameters. The proposed methodology is
assessed using synthetic data.
The article is organized as follow. After this introduction,
we state the problem in the second part. In the third part the
direct model is defined and its inversion is described in the
fourth part. The fifth part is dedicated to the experimentation
of the proposed model on synthetic data. The last part is the
conclusion. 38

II. P ROBLEM STATEMENT

37

The signal GPS of satellite s consists of a code division Real C/N0

multiple access (CDMA) CAs (...) (Gold Code CA) modulated 36

Estimate C/N0

at pulsation ωs . The signal is binary phase shift keying (BPSK)

modulated. The code and carrier are assumed to be both time

C/N0 [dBHz]
and frequency shifted. 35


S R (t) = As (t)CAs (t − τs ) 34

s∈S
sin(ωs t + φs ) + ηs (t) (1) 33

In this expression As is the signal amplitude; it is normalized

to drive the noise variance of ηs (t) to 1. It is a function of 32
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

the signal to noise ratio (S/N0 ). The noise is supposed to be f [Hz]

white, Gaussian, and centred. The signal is down converted

by the receiver and is given by the following expression: Figure 1. C/N0 estimate of satellite 1 as a function of its Doppler.

S IF
(t) = As (t)CAs (t − τs )
s∈S 36

sin(ωsd t + φs ) + ηs (t)
C/N0 of satellite 1
(2) C/N0 of 1 when 2 is delayed of π/3

35
where ωsd is the Doppler pulsation of satellite s. A GPS
receiver realizes the signal acquisition in a first stage. It 34
estimates the carrier frequency ω̂sd , the code delay τ̂s and the

C/N0 [dBHz]
phase delay φ̂s of the received signal. At the end of this first 33

stage the receiver tracks the variations of these parameters

as a function of time in a tracking module. The frequency 32

and the phase indeed change with the Doppler Effect (the
relative speed satellite-receiver), and the code delay with the 31

satellite-receiver pseudo range evolution. We assume also that

the message of navigation is estimated in the tracking process. 30
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
f [Hz]

In order to estimate the carrier to noise ratio C/N0 a

receiver processes the in phase component of the signal after
sampling and demodulation (signal processing block diagram
of the Figure 3). The in phase component Ik defined at instant
k is processed after integration of the signal every CDMA
code period Tb = 1ms. We assume that the local code and
carrier are perfectly aligned on the received signals, then an
estimation of C/N0 is given by the following expression [1]:
  2
 ˆ 
1 E Ik 
C/N0 =  
T var Iˆk
where T is the integration time. We show on the Figure
1 and on the Figure 2 the estimate carrier to noise ratio
C/N0 of satellite 1 in dBHz. Figure 1 and Figure 2 the
values of C/N0 are respectively obtained when only the
satellite 1 is visible and when two satellites 1 and 2 are
visible. In these simulations A1 (t), A2 (t) are supposed to
be constant during the integration period T = Tb and we
fix A1,i = 0.03(37.6 dBHz). On the Figure 1 the values
of C/N0 are function of f the Doppler of the signal. On
the Figure 2 the values of C/N0 are function of the phase
and Doppler frequency of satellite 2. In this simulation we
fix A1,i = 0.03(37.6 dBHz) and A2,i = 0.1(48 dBHz). In
conclusion the estimate C/N0 of satellite 1 will depend on its
own Doppler frequency and will depend on the phase Doppler
Figure 2. C/N0 estimate of satellite 1 as a function of its Doppler and of
the phase of satellite 2. The Doppler of satellite 2 is fixed to 1000 Hz.
and power of the other satellites.
These simulations show the effect of the inter correlation
between the satellites signal on the estimation of C/N0 . Soil
moisture applications use the difference of power between
the direct and nadir signal to estimate the soil humidity. We
(3)
show with this simulation that expression (3) is an inaccurate
estimate of A1,i and that its reproducibility is weak. It is
indeed an estimate function of the power, Doppler and phase
of the other satellites. This inter correlation noise is also a
function of the satellite constellation and a function of time
which reduce the measurement reproducibility.
In the next section we derive a statistic model for Ik that takes
into account the visible satellites. We propose a non linear
relation between the mean of Ik and the amplitudes As,i . In
the fourth section we inverse this relation in order to estimate
the amplitudes and C/N0 .
III. D IRECT MODEL
We present on the Figure 3 the signal processing block
diagram used to estimate the in phase value of correlation Ik .
On the Figure 3 SiIF at instant i is the intermediate frequency
 SR(t) SIF(t) SiIF Ii Ik loops. Finally the mean of Ik is obtained with the following
relations:

E(I) = 2 ∗ P (I = 1) − 1 (9)
sin(ȦL1 t) fr fr fr (10)
and :
E(Ik ) = E(I) ∗ fr ∗ Tb (11)
cos(Ȧsd t+ĭs) CA(t-ɎšP (12)

where V ar(η) = 1. This approach implies the simultaneous

Figure 3. Signal processing block diagramme.
inversion of the model for each satellite from the values of
correlation provide by the tracking process. In expression (7)
signal obtained at the sampling rate fr . Ii is the sampled the model for one satellite is indeed linked to the other satellite
signal after demultiplexing and demodulation. The sampled with the value of As,i .
signal takes the values {1, −1}. Ik the integration of Ii on an
interval Tb is the in phase component. The maximum value IV. M ODEL I NVERSION
of Ik is Tb ∗ fr but due to the additive noise on the received The goal of the inversion is to find the amplitudes
signal, Ik is a random variable with a mean dependent of the As,k /s ∈ S of the n = Card {S} satellites signals. We
additive noise power. consider n observations Is,k at each instant k (Tb is the length
The aim of this section is to define the probability for I to
take the value 1. I is a random variable with a realisation Ii . between two instants). This problem is a non-linear inverse
Let’s define the sampled signal at intermediate frequency in problem because the equation (7) that links the observations
the two satellites case: with the parameters to estimate is non-linear. Furthermore
this problem is a dynamic problem because the amplitudes of
SiIF = S1,i + S2,i + η (4)
the signals change with the satellites elevation and with the
= d
As1,i CAs1,i cos(2πfs1 (i/fr ))
positions of the antenna used to sense the soil moisture.
+As2,i CAs2,i cos(2πfs2
d
(i/fr )) + ηi (5)

where fsd is the Doppler of satellite s. Let’s define the In practice this problem is solved with numerical solutions.
probability P (I = 1) for the random variables S1 and S2 Most of these solutions use a local linearization of the
(with realisations S1,i and S2,i ) as follows : problem in order to compute the Jacobian of the non linear
P (I = 1) = (6)
function. For example the steepest gradient descent and the
Moore-penrose pseudo inverse method can be used [3]. But
P (S1 > 0, S2 > 0, η ≥ −(S1 + S2 )) +
the computation of the local linearization of the problem can
P (S1 > 0, S2 < 0, η ≥ −(S1 − S2 )) +
be a critical point for practical use. This is the case of the
P (S1 < 0, S2 > 0, η ≤ (S1 − S2 )) + proposed non linear function which is highly non linear and
P (S1 < 0, S2 < 0, η ≤ (S1 + S2 )) with a high complexity relative to the number of satellites.
The local code and carrier are assumed to be aligned with Furthermore the problem is the time varying and the inversion
the received code and carrier of satellite 1. We can derive the method should use a dynamic model. The particle filter acts
following expression from the Bayes theorem: in this case as a stochastic gradient descent following a
P (I = 1) = (7)
dynamic model.
P (S1 > 0)P (S2 > 0/S1 > 0)
Particle filtering is a powerful smoothing tool for non-linear
P (η > −(S1 + S2 )/S1 > 0, S2 > 0) +
model and when the distributions of the state and measurement
. noises error are not Gaussian. There are three principal steps
. at each iteration of the process, namely the prediction, which
. consists in generating particles pseudo-randomly following
P (S1 < 0)P (S2 < 0/S1 < 0) the state equation; the correction, which is a weighting
(1 − P (η > (S1 + S2 )/S1 < 0, S2 < 0)) of the generated particles using measurements; and finally
the resampling of the particles, which allows to eliminate
Let define X = {i/S1,i > 0, S2,i > 0}, it follows :
particles with low weights. Numerous resampling methods
P (η > −(S1 + S2 )/S1 > 0, S2 > 0) = (8) exist [4], each having their advantages and inconveniences.
  
1 −(S1,i + S2,i )
erf c √
2 Card {X} i∈X 2 We consider the following linear state equation (alpha-beta
filter) for each satellite s:
P (S1 > 0) and P (S2 > 0/S1 > 0) are defined with the
unnoisy synthetic version of signals S1 and S2 . These signals As,k = As,k−1 + Tb Ȧs,k−1 + ν1,k (13)
are reconstructed with the parameters estimate in the tracking Ȧs,k = Ȧs,k−1 + ν2,k (14)
The gaussian noises ν1,k , ν2,k represent the model error. They
7
are respectively the state noise error on the amplitude and the s1
6 s2
velocity amplitude. The non linear measurement equation is
5
defined by :

Phase [rad]
4

zs,k = f {As,k }s∈S + ωk
3
(15)
2

where f (...) is defined by the equation (7) and ωk is a Gaussian 1

0
noise of variance R. In our implementation as the amplitudes 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
time [s]
of the different satellites signals are uncorrelated, the choice
was done to realise n vector particle filters working in parallel. 4

The filtering algorithm is thus as following: 2

Doppler variations [Hz]

1) Initialization: we draw 2 N particles xi1,0 i = 1, ..., N 0

for the amplitude and xi2,0 i = 1, ..., N for the velocity. −2

The particles are drawn from Gaussian distributions. The −4

mean of the distributions is zero for the amplitude ve- −6
locity and is estimated for the amplitude. The expression −8
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
(11) can indeed be inverted in the one satellite case time [s]
and provides in this case an estimate of the amplitude
obtained from a measurement of Ik . The variances of
the distributions are the variances of the state noise error. Figure 4. Phase and Doppler as a function of time.
These variances are parameters tune by the user.
2) Filtering: All the particles are updated using the formula:
A. Static case
xi1,k = xi1,k−1 + Tb xi2,k−1 (16) In the static case we consider two moving satellites and
xi2,k = xi2,k−1 + νk (17) a fix antenna. The system geometry changes slowly so for
an integration period of 2s we assume that the foot print of
where νk is a Gaussian random noise. With the the nadir antenna (on the soil) stays in the same place. We
predicted state we construct the predicted non linear assume that the soil moisture and the nadir signal power stay
observation: constant during the experimentation.
We show on the Figure 4 the phase and frequency as a

 
function of time used as input parameter for the simulation.
xiN L,k = f xis,1,k s∈S (18)
For this simulation we take into account the acceleration
satellite receiver and the noise jitter on the local oscillator
where xis,1,k is the particle xi1,k associated with satellite
of the receiver [12]. The Doppler is 1000 Hz for satellite
s. Particle weights are then obtained by
s1 and 3000 Hz for satellite s2. In this experimentation the

pi1,k = pi1,k−1 N zs,k , xiN L,k , R (19) satellites signal amplitudes are 0.1 for the satellite s1 and
0.03 for satellite s2.
and normalized. The estimate states are then obtained as
following: We report in the Table I the estimate of C/N0 obtained
with the proposed method and with the classical estimate

N
Âs,k = pi1,k xi1,k (20) defined in (3). The classical estimate is processed with
i=1 the statistical parameters of the correlation (Prompt values)
N obtained during two seconds. The proposed estimate value
Ȧˆs,k = pi1,k xi2,k (21) of C/N0 is derived from the equations (3) and (11) with the
i=1 last estimate of As,k provided by the particle filter.
3) Resampling: the chosen resampling is here the SIR
(Sequential Importance Resampling) [4] with a number Table I
of particles, for the velocity defined as follow: E STIMATE C/N0 IN D BH Z FOR THE STATIC CASE

1 Theoretical Classical estimate Proposed estimate

N = N (22) Satellite s1 37.6 33.5 38
2
i=1 (p2,k )
i
Satellite s2 48 44.2 47.9
V. E XPERIMENTATIONS
In the experimentations we assess the method in a static We can conclude with the results reported in the Table I
case and in a dynamic case. that the proposed method is more accurate than the classical
 0.16
0.14
0.12
0.1
Amplitude As,k
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
time [s]
Figure 5. Signal amplitude as a function of time.
estimate. We observe a bias, with the theoretical value of
C/N0 , in the classical estimates. This bias appears because
in the classical method the phase, frequency and code delay
of the satellites are not taken into account. Furthermore with
the proposed approach we can compute a value of C/N0
every period of integration of the signal in difference with
the classical estimate that processes the statistical parameters
of the correlation on period. The filter estimates a value of
As,k at each instant k and we process the statistical parameter
of the correlation with expression (11) and then an estimate of
C/N0 . The mean and standard deviation of these estimates for
1 s of observation are respectively (37.4 dBHz-1.3 dBHz)
for satellite s1 and (48 dBHz-0.4 dBHz) for satellite s2.
This result shows that the proposed method can provide an
estimate of C/N0 with an accuracy of less than 1 dBHz every
period of integration of the signal (In this experimentation
Tb ). Obviously this accuracy is improved for a higher value
of C/N0 .
B. Dynamic case
In the dynamic case we consider a moving antenna and the
soil moisture changing with time. This evolution is observed
with the in phase correlation component and is reported as
an amplitude variation in the GNSS signal of satellite s1.
We show on the Figure 5 the evolution of the amplitudes of
satellites s1 and s2 for this experimentation. We report on
the Figure 5 the estimate values of the amplitude obtained
with the proposed method.
We report in the Table II the mean and standard deviation
of the error of estimation of C/N0 . The error is processed for
the proposed method and the classical estimate. The classical
estimate is processed on a working window of 20 ms.
Table II
Estimate A1,k E RROR OF C/N0 ESTIMATION IN D BH Z FOR THE DYNAMIC CASE
Estimate A2,k
Theoretical value of A1,k
(mean/std) Classical estimate Proposed estimate
Theoretical value of A2,k
Satellite s1 (3.7/1.6) (0.7/1)
Satellite s2 (3.6/1.7) (0.7/1)
As in the static case, we observe a bias for the classical
estimate due to the phase, the frequency and the code delay of
the different satellites. The proposed estimate is more accurate
because the bias is decreased (the residual bias is due to
the response delay of the filter) and the error of estimation
(standard deviation of the error) is lower. Furthermore the
measurements of C/N0 are obtained with the proposed method
at a higher rate of 1/Tb.
1
1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 VI. C ONCLUSION
We show in this article that the classical estimate of C/N0
depends on the satellite constellation. This dependence de-
creases the reproducibility of it’s measurement. We define in
this paper a new estimate of C/N0 independent of the carrier,
code and phase delay of the visible satellites. This estimate
is defined by a non linear expression that links C/N0 to the
values of the in phase correlation component provided by the
Delay Lock Loop. The inversion of this expression is realised
with a particle filter. In the experimentation we compare the
proposed approach with the classical estimate. We show that
the new estimate provides more accurate and reproducible
values of C/N0 at a higher rate.
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