WORK IN PROGRESS ARTICLE

Since a long time I make experiments in my garden with different sensors. I have tested, conductive moisture, all kind of temperature/relative humidity, PH probes, NPK tests… All have their pros and cons, but one thing is common to many of them, their impossiblity to be a fulltime in the field sensor. Some of them are able to stay for a longer period but their design lack of durability. In the era of waste, pollution, all plastic designs and programmed failure a reliable, durable array sensor with maintenance free (or very limited), cost-effectiveness and ease to install must be designed to ease the transition to a less industrial-centric farm process. With the right tools, farmers could know their land better than ever and understand it more.

This article focus on the design of a robust non destructive soil sensor. The work  » A connected soil humidity and salinity sensor for precision agriculture » from the inria is very interesting approach to the moisture/salinity measurement problem.

The main goal is to design a perpetual soil sensor that can stay for long time (years) in the field without maintenance.

References

The Effects of Soil Moisture Content on Reflectance Spectra of Soils Using UV-VIS-NIR Spectroscopy

Optical Sensing Methods for Assessment of Soil Macro-nutrients and other Properties for Application in Precision Agriculture:: A review

A connected soil humidity and salinity sensor forprecision agriculture