A team of University of Connecticut researchers engineered a soil moisture sensor that is more cost effective than anything currently available and responds to the global need to regulate water consumption in agriculture.
Designed and tested on the university’s farm, the sensors are small enough to insert into the soil with ease and less expensive to manufacture than current technology, the researchers write in the Journal of Sensors and Actuators.
“Advances in hydrological science are hampered by the lack of on site soil moisture data,” said Guiling Wang, study author and professor of civil and environmental engineering at UConn. “It’s really hard to monitor and measure things underground. The challenge is that the existing sensors are very expensive and the installation process is very labor intensive.”
The sensors developed by the team of UConn engineers — environmental, mechanical, and chemical — are expected to save nearly 35% of water consumption and cost far less than what exists. Current sensors that are used in a similar way range from $100 to $1,000 each, while the one developed at UConn cost $2, according to the researchers.
Read more at University of Connecticut
Photo: From left to right, UConn Professors Baikun Li and Guiling Wang, and Wangchi Zhou, Ph.D. (Christopher LaRosa/UConn Photo)