A team of researchers at Iowa State University is working towards developing a wireless network of soil sensors that could help farmers collect and track soil data.
The nine member team led by Ratnesh Kumar, Iowa State professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working towards building small sensors (the prototypes are about 2 inches wide, 4 inches long and less than an inch thick) that can do their work entirely underground. The sensors won’t need wires or above-ground antennas, so farmers could work right over the top of them. The sensors would also be able to report their locations. That would make it easy to find sensors if a plow were to move them or when batteries need to be replaced. More after the jump.
Web link:Iowa State University

Eventually the researchers are hoping the sensors will also collect data about soil temperature and nutrient content. According to Kumar, the sensors are designed to be buried about a foot deep in a grid pattern 80 to 160 feet apart. The sensors would relay data along the grid to a central computer that would record information for researchers or farmers.
The sensors could help researchers understand precisely how water moves through a field. They could help them develop better models to predict crop growth and yield. And they could help them understand the carbon and nitrogen cycles within soils.
And those sensors could help farmers manage their nutrient and water resources. That could maximize yields and profits. And it could minimize environmental impacts.
“If nutrients are in excess of what’s needed, it doesn’t help the yield,” Kumar said. “Those resources just drain into the environment.”
Also working on the project are Ahmed Kamal, a professor of electrical and computer engineering; Robert Weber, the David C. Nicholas Professor of electrical and computer engineering; Amy Kaleita, an assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering and graduate students Candace Batts, Giorgi Chighladze, Jing Huang and Herman Sahota.

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