A portable rover as a tool for soil water monitoring

Abstract

Advances in soil water content (SWC) monitoring technology continue to provide new and significant benefits to agriculture. An innovative approach for observing SWC is introduced using a portable rover platform traveling through in-ground horizontal access tubes and monitors the SWC in real time. A series of tests for evaluating the prototype portable rover were designed and conducted. It demonstrated very good mobility and produced records of the SWC in different horizons. The recorded values were then plotted as three dimensional (3D) patterns with high accuracy. The results show potential applications for this sensing approach, yielding horizontal monitoring of soil water in the root zone or deeper subsurface. © TAE 2019 - Proceeding of 7th International Conference on Trends in Agricultural Engineering 2019. All Rights Reserved.