Agricultural Sustainability by Monitoring with Affordable Re-usable TouchScreens (Project Agri-SMARTs)

在英国的尖端可持续农业中，大型温室农场拥有灌溉系统，将养分直接输送到无土系统中的植物根部，这是水产养殖施肥的一种形式。在英国，这种农业方法对于提高可持续性、减少对当地环境的影响、减少温室气体以及为英国的食品和营养安全做出贡献至关重要。发现的问题是，目前还没有负担得起的方法来在线测量供应给植物的营养物质。还需要价格实惠的集成传感器来跟踪养分，以便在生长周期的每个阶段进行快速和准确的调整，以推动成本降低、化肥和养分利用效率并优化产量反应和风味。触摸屏技术是一种令人兴奋的潜在传感解决方案。触摸屏技术在我们的日常生活中无处不在。典型智能手机的屏幕上覆盖着一个电极网格，当手指扰乱这些电极的局部电场时，手机就会解释信号。与其解释你手指上的信号，不如让我们用触摸屏读取营养/电解质，因为这些离子也会与电场相互作用。我们已经展示了如何使用典型的触摸屏通过在屏幕上滴下液体样本来识别土壤或饮用水中的常见离子污染物，这是第一次实现这一点。触摸屏传感器的灵敏度可与典型的实验室设备相媲美，这将使其在成本敏感或资源不足的环境中很有用。在这个项目中，我们将进一步简化传感器，以确保它们易于制造、价格实惠，并且易于针对不同的感兴趣离子进行调整。这些将被整合到一个合作农场的网站中，以展示养分跟踪如何通过精准农业提供令人难以置信的优势。

In cutting edge sustainable farming in the UK, large glasshouse farms have irrigation systems that deliver nutrients directly to the plant roots in soilless systems, a form of aquaculture fertigation. This approach to farming is crucial in the UK in the drive to improve sustainability, reduce local environmental impact, reduce greenhouse gases and contribute to UK food and nutrition security. The problem identified is that currently there is no affordable method for in-line measurements of the nutrients being fed to the plants. Affordable integrated sensors that track nutrients are also needed for rapid and accurate tuning at every stage of the growth cycle to drive cost reduction, fertiliser and nutrient use efficiency and optimise yield response and flavour. There is an exciting potential sensing solution in the form of touchscreen technologies. Touchscreen technology is ubiquitous in our everyday lives. The screen on a typical smartphone is covered in a grid of electrodes, and when a finger disrupts the local electric field of these electrodes, the phone interprets the signal. Instead of interpreting a signal from your finger, what if we could get a touchscreen to read nutrients/electrolytes, since these ions also interact with the electric fields? We have shown how a typical touchscreen could be used to identify common ionic contaminants in soil or drinking water by dropping liquid samples on the screen, the first time this has been achieved. The sensitivity of the touchscreen sensor is comparable to typical lab-based equipment, which would make it useful in cost-sensitive or low-resource settings. In this project, we will simplify the sensors further to ensure they are easy affordable to manufacture and easy to tune for different ions of interest. These will be integrated into the site of a partner farm to demonstrate how nutrient tracking can deliver incredible advantages through precision agriculture.