I-Corps: Infrared Laser Absorption Spectroscopy for Soil Monitoring

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是采用了一种新的标准来评估土壤和岩土材料的实时状况。极端天气波动和自然灾害的发生可能会增加土壤侵蚀，降低可用土地、土壤肥力以及对病虫害的抵抗力，从而永久扰乱现代社会和农业实践。尽管可用土地数量有限，但不断增长的人口将对农业生产提出更多需求。有助于更好的营养管理、种植和收获技术的技术将有助于可持续的粮食生产。此外，鉴于尾矿库的严重破坏，需要更好的土壤特性和监测技术。通过对岩土材料进行实时、远程测量，可以提高采矿和大型土方施工作业的安全性。最后，更频繁和更强烈的野火导致了更多的野火后泥石流。必须确定与泥石流潜在危险有关的危险，并确定其特征。该项目将探索的光学、非接触式遥测技术有可能对社会以及从精准农业到采矿、减灾和建筑等多个市场和行业产生影响。这个i-Corps项目将探索光学红外线技术的应用。将探索的具体技术是在试验台和田间尺度上开发的，用于远程测量土壤特性。拟议的创新将通过实现土壤/作物状况和肥力的远程测量以及静态和动态土壤参数来促进农业和岩土工程实践。在这项技术发展之前，还没有一种方法可以在野外遥测土壤吸力。由于测量不需要与土壤接触，也不需要收集土壤或水样，因此测量是非破坏性的。此外，获得的快速收集的测量将包括大范围内的许多数据点，与传统的逐点数据收集方法相比，提高了空间和时间分辨率。这样就消除了安装劳动密集型和成本高昂的现场仪器的需要。这项拟议的技术还有可能节省与土壤特性的传统实验室分类相关的时间和成本，并可能改善一些传统测试方法的糟糕重复性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the adoption of a new standard for assessing the real-time condition of soil and geomaterials. The occurrence of extreme weather fluctuations and natural disasters have the potential to permanently disrupt modern society and agricultural practices by increasing soil erosion and decreasing usable land, soil fertility, and resistance to pests and disease. Growing populations will place more demand on agricultural production despite constrained amounts of available land. Technologies that assist with better nutrient management, planting, and harvesting techniques will aid in sustainable food production. Additionally, the need for better soil characterization and monitoring techniques are required in light of prominent failures of mine tailings dams. The safety of mining and large earth construction operations may be improved with the adoption of real-time, remote measurements of geomaterials. Lastly, more frequent and intense wildfires have led to more post-wildfire debris flows. Dangers associated with the debris flow potential must be identified and characterized. The optical, non-contact remote measurement technology that will be explored in this project has the potential to impact society as well as several markets and industries, ranging from precision agriculture to mining, hazard mitigation, and construction.This I-Corps project will explore the applications of optical infrared technology. The specific technology that will be explored was developed at the bench and field scale to remotely measure soil properties. The proposed innovation will advance agricultural and geotechnical engineering practices by enabling remote measurements of soil/crop condition and fertility, as well as static and dynamic soil parameters. Prior to the development of this technology, no method existed to remotely measure soil suction in the field. Because the measurements do not require contact with the soil, nor the collection of soil or water samples, the measurements are non-destructive. Furthermore, the rapidly collected measurements obtained will include many data points over a large area, improving spatial and temporal resolution over conventional point-wise data collection methods. The need to install labor-intensive and cost-prohibitive in situ instrumentation is then eliminated. The proposed technology also has the potential to save time and costs associated with conventional laboratory classification of soil properties and may also improve upon the poor reproducibility of some conventional testing methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.