Automated Soil Moisture Monitoring Wireless Sensor Network for Long-Term Cal/Val Applications

Aurelio Cano, José Luís Añón, Candid Reig, Cristina Millán-Scheiding, Ernesto López-Baeza

Climatology from Satellites Group, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Research Centre on Desertification-CIDE, CSIC-University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.

DOI: 10.4236/wsn.2012.48030                

Abstract

The design and development of a wireless sensor network for soil moisture measurement in an unlevelled 10 km × 10 km area, is described. It was specifically deployed for the characterization of a reference area, in campaigns of calibration and validation of the space mission SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity), but the system is easily extensible to monitor other climatic or environmental variables, as well as to other regions of ecological interest. The network consists of a number of automatic measurement stations, strategically placed following soil homogeneity and land uses criteria. Every station includes acquisition, conditioning and communication systems. The electronics are battery operated with the help of solar cells, in order to have a total autonomous system. The collected data is then transmitted through long radio links, with ling ranges above 8 km. A standard PC linked to internet is finally used in order to control the whole network, to store the data, and to allow the remote access to the real-time data.

Keywords

Wireless Sensor Network; Soil Moisture Monitoring; SMOS Calibration/Validation; Radio Frequency Links

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	L. Min-Hui and S. J. Famiglietti, “Precipitation Response to Land Subsurface Hydrologic Processes in Atmospheric General Circulation Model Simulations,” Journal of Geo-physical Research-Atmospheres, Vol. 116, 2011, Article ID: D05107.
[2]	S. Mecklenburg, M. Drusch, Y. Kerr, J. Font, M. Martin-Neira, S. Delwart, G. Buenadicha, N. Reul, E. Daganzo-Eusebio, R. Oliva and R. Crapolicchio, “ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission: Mission Performance and Operations,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Vol. 50, No. 5, 2012, pp. 1354-1366. doi:10.1109/TGRS.2012.2187666
[3]	European Space Agency, “SMOS Earth Explorers,” 2012. http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPsmos.html
[4]	E. López-Baeza, A. Velázquez, C. Antolín, A. Bodas. J. F. Gimeno, K. Saleh, F. Ferrer, C. Domenech, N. Castell and M. A. Sánchez, “The Valencia Anchor Station, a cal/ val Reference Area for Large Scale Low Spatial Resolution Remote Sensing Data And Products,” Proceedings of Symposium on Recent Advances in Quantitative Remote Sensing, Valencia, 16-20 September 2002, pp. 16-20.
[5]	C. Millán-Scheiding, C. Antolín, A. Cano and E. López-Baeza, “The Use of Physio-Hidrologic Units for Soil Moisture Monitoring with SMOS,” III National Symposium on Desertification and Soil Degradation, September 2007.
[6]	W. T. Davis, X. Liang, C.-M. Kuo and Y. Liang, “Analysis of Power Characteristics for Sap Flow, Soil Moisture, and Soil Water Potential,” IEEE Sensors Journal, Vol. 12, No. 6, 2012, pp. 1933-1945. doi:10.1109/JSEN.2011.2179933
[7]	Digital Micro Devices (DMD), “Products,” 2012. http://www.dmd.es/
[8]	Delta-T Devices, “Products,” 2012. http://www.delta-t.co.uk/
[9]	M. Keshtgari and A. Deljoo, “A Wireless Sensor Network Solution for Precission Agriculture Based on Zigbee Technology,” Wireless Sensor Network, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2012, pp. 25-30. doi:10.4236/wsn.2012.41004
[10]	F. Ianello, O. Simeone and U. Spagnolini, “Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks with Energy Harvesting,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. 60, No. 5, 2012, pp. 1381-1389. doi:10.1109/TCOMM.2012.030712.110089
[11]	M. Pandey and S. Verma, “Energy Consumption Patterns for Different Mobility Conditions in WSN,” Wireless Sensor Network, Vol. 3, 2011, pp. 378-383. doi:10.4236/wsn.2011.312044