Soil Sensors and their Wireless Underground Network for Precision Farming and Environmental Management

该计划的目标是开发：(1)用于监测土壤特性（如土壤湿度和硝酸盐）的原位土壤传感器；(2)地下无线传感器网络自动采集土壤时空变化特征；(3)基于分布式监测的农业生产系统建模与分析信息管理与决策技术。智力上的优点是：(1)开发了一个基于网络的框架，使研究人员能够更好地了解大范围内土壤和环境的特性；(2)建立地下传感器和通信网络；(3)开发农业施肥管理工具，在满足作物需求的同时尽量减少对环境的影响。更广泛的影响是：(1)拟议的计划是朝着精确控制化肥施用迈出的一步，这将有助于减少化肥流入流域并最大限度地减少对环境的影响；(2)拟议的地下传感器网络将用于任何需要远程地下分布式传感、防止地面活动（人、火等）或隐蔽（如边境巡逻）的应用；(3)地下网络基础设施可被其他科研团体（如遥感）用于校准/验证他们自己的设备/算法；(4)培养3名博士研究生，研究方向为农业科学、土壤遥感、地下无线网络和基于作物/水文流/碳循环模型的决策。该提案的变革组成部分是：(1)将信息和网络系统技术引入农业领域，以精确、频繁和高分辨率地测量土壤特性，以及测量驱动的农业投入控制；(2)开发具有地下通信、节能运行、本地化和故障恢复能力的无线传感器网络基础设施；(3)开发用于测量土壤水分和养分等特性的精确和可现场部署的传感器。

The objectives of this program are to develop: (1) In-situ soil sensors for monitoring soil properties such as soil moisture and nitrates; (2) Underground wireless sensor network for autonomously gathering the spatio-temporally varying soil properties; (3) Information management and decision-making technology based on distributed monitoring for modeling and analysis of agricultural production systems.The intellectual merits are: (1) Development of a network based framework for researchers to better understand properties of soils and the environment over a large area; (2) Establishment of an underground sensor and communication network; (3) Development of tools for fertilization management in farming for minimizing their environmental impact while meeting crop demands.The broader impacts are: (1) The proposed program is a step toward precisely controlling fertilizer application that will help reduce their run-offs to the watersheds and minimizing the environmental impact; (2) The proposed underground sensor network will find its use in any application requiring remote underground distributed-sensing, safety against surface activities (human, fire, etc.), or covertness (e.g., border patrol); (3) The underground network infrastructure can be used by other research community such as(remote-sensing) to calibrate/validate their own equipment/algorithms; (4) Three Ph.D. students will be trained in an interdisciplinary area of agriculture sciences, soil sensing, underground wireless networking, and decision-making based on crop/hydrologic-flow/carbon-cycle models.The transformative components of the proposal are: (1) Introduction of information and cybersystem technologies to the field of agriculture for precise, frequent, and high-resolution measurement of soil properties, and measurement-driven control of agriculture inputs; (2) Development of a wireless sensor network infrastructure capable of underground communication, energy-efficient operation, localization, and resiliency to failures; (3) Development of accurate and field-deployable sensors for measuring soil properties such as moisture and nutrient.