Device and method for measuring the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow
AssigneeUniversita' Degli Studi Di Padova
InventorsLuca Stevanato, Marcello Lunardon, Sandra Moretto, Cristiano Lino Fontana
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A device (12) for measuring the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow, comprises: at least one first module (20) adapted to measure a flow of cosmic rays incident to the ground; at least one second module (40) adapted to measure an ambient neutron flow; and a control unit (60) connected to said at least one first module (20) and said at least one second module (40). The control unit (60) is adapted to process the measurements of said at least one first module (20) and said at least one second module (40) to determine the measurement of the water content.
Claims19
A device for measuring the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow, comprising:
- at least one first module adapted to measure the flow of incident cosmic rays in the form of high energy neutrons, protons and muons originating from interactions of cosmic rays with high layers of the atmosphere;
- at least one second module adapted to measure an ambient neutron flow, between epithermal and slow;
- and
- a control unit connected to said at least one first module and to said at least one second module;
- wherein said control unit is adapted to process the measurements of said at least one first module and said at least one second module to determine the measurement of the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow.
A method for measuring the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow, comprising the steps of:
- providing a device for measuring the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow comprising:
- at least one first module adapted to measure the flow of incident cosmic rays in the form of high energy neutrons, protons and muons originating from interactions of cosmic rays with high layers of the atmosphere;
- at least one second module adapted to measure ambient neutron flow;
- and a control unit connected to said at least one first module and said at least one second module;
- and
- processing the measurements made by the first module and the second module using the control unit to obtain a measurement of the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow;
- wherein the measurement of the water content of the ground, vegetation and snow is obtained from the measurement of a normalized ambient neutron flow with respect to the measurement of the flow of cosmic rays incident to the ground.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.