SitS: The Soil Macroscope: A Multivariable Subterranean Sensor Network

该奖项是通过“土壤中的信号（SitS）”征集，国家科学基金会和美国农业部国家粮食和农业研究所（USDA NIFA）之间的合作伙伴关系。世纪的主要挑战之一是通过更有效地利用土壤和水资源来实现粮食安全和环境可持续性的目标。这需要更好地了解土壤的化学，物理，地质和生物过程和反应，以及它们对植物生长和生态系统生产力的影响。这反过来又要求在土壤数据的大小和分辨率方面有数量级的改进。这项研究将通过拟议的土壤宏观镜来实现这些改进，土壤宏观镜是一种全埋式低功耗无线地下传感器网络，可以真实的实时、高分辨率地收集土壤数据。这一传感器网络将使土地能够科学地分割成可视的“地理像素”，多变量传感器的输入将产生土壤数据和相关数据的层次。 土壤宏观项目的目标有两个：㈠为可靠的实地规模地下传感器网络和真实的实时数据收集/管理系统奠定基础; ㈡证明这种网络可以在实地长时间运行，对土壤环境及其局部波动情况形成综合看法。研究目标将通过结合传感器和无线技术的进展，建立埋地土壤传感器网络来实现。这些网络将在农场和草地生态系统中进行实地规模的实验。通过捕获土壤水分，温度，氧气和养分的动态，同时在时间和空间上，它是假设，可以开发的技术来预测土壤出现的属性和集体影响的属性在调节生态系统和植物生产力的土壤地球化学。这种预测可以显着提高对土壤过程的理解，提高农业效率。该研究包括三个方面：（i）传感器研究，开发一种新的基于芯片上硅光子学的紧凑型土壤硝酸盐传感器，具有高灵敏度和一种利用用于数据通信的无线信号的衰减来绘制土壤体积含水量的新技术;（ii），无线研究，探索新的150 MHz MURS频段频率和新的时间编码低功率通信协议，专门用于地下150 MHz和902兆赫传输;和（iii）建立一个强大的，可扩展的土壤宏观，使现场规模的实验表征土壤地球化学和生态系统生产力使用的结果，从前两个推力。土壤宏观项目是独特的跨学科：跨越材料科学，无线通信和土壤科学，以开发实验现场部署，严格测试这些学科的研究成果。除了将软件、硬件和现场数据纳入现有和新的课程之外，芝加哥大学和威斯康星州大学的现有项目将被利用，以接触并让学生参与部署传感器、分析数据和设计实验。如果成功的话，土壤宏观镜有可能极大地改变土壤科学和农业实践的发展方式，并可能导致新的技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This award was made through the "Signals in the Soil (SitS)" solicitation, a collaborative partnership between the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA). One of the major challenges of the 21st century is to meet the goals of food security and environmental sustainability through more efficient utilization of soil and water resources. This requires a better understanding of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions of soil, and their effects on plant growth and ecosystem productivity. This in turn requires orders-of-magnitude improvements in the size and resolution of soil data. This research will accomplish these improvements by the proposed Soil Macroscope, a fully buried low power wireless underground sensor network that collects soil data in real time and with high resolution. This sensor network will enable the scientific fragmentation of the land into visual “geo-pixels” with multi-variate sensor inputs creating layers of soil data and related data. The objectives of the Soil Macroscope project are twofold: (i) to lay the foundation for reliable, field-scale subterranean sensor networks and real time data collection/curation systems; and (ii) demonstrate that such networks can operate in the field over an extended period of time to produce an integrated view of the soil environment and its local fluctuations. The research objectives will be accomplished by combining progress in sensor and wireless technologies to build buried soil sensor networks. These networks will be deployed for field-scale experiments in a farm and a grassland ecosystem. By capturing the dynamics of soil moisture, temperature, oxygen, and nutrients simultaneously in time and space, it is hypothesized that techniques can be developed to predict soil emergent properties and the collective influence the properties have in regulating the biogeochemistry of an ecosystem and plant productivity. This prediction can significantly improve understanding of soil processes and enhance agricultural efficiency. This research is comprised of three thrusts: (i) sensor research where to develop a new on-chip silicon photonics based compact soil nitrate sensor with high sensitivity and a new technique for mapping volume water content of soil using the attenuation of the wireless signal used for data communications; (ii), wireless research to explore a new 150 MHz MURS band frequency and a new time coded low power communication protocol specialized for wireless transmissions underground for both 150 MHz and 902 MHz transmissions; and (iii), building a robust, scalable Soil Macroscope to enable field-scale experiments characterizing soil biogeochemistry and ecosystem productivity using the results from the previous two thrusts. The Soil Macroscope project is uniquely cross-disciplinary: spanning materials science, wireless communication, and soil science to develop experimental field deployments that will rigorously test the research output across these disciplines. In addition to incorporating the software, hardware, and field data into existing and new coursework, existing programs at the University of Chicago and University of Wisconsin will be leveraged to reach out to and involve school students in deploying sensors, analyzing the data, and devising experiments. The Soil Macroscope, if successful, has the potential to dramatically change the way soil science and agricultural practices evolve and can lead to new technologies.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.