Author(s)

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.

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.

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

A. Cano, J. Añón, C. Reig, C. Millán-Scheiding and E. López-Baeza, "Automated Soil Moisture Monitoring Wireless Sensor Network for Long-Term Cal/Val Applications," Wireless Sensor Network, Vol. 4 No. 8, 2012, pp. 202-209. doi: 10.4236/wsn.2012.48030.