Download Land is broadly defined as the physical environment consisting

Ambarish et al. / IJAIR
ISSN: 2278-7844
Optical MEMS based Soil Parameter Monitoring
for Precision Agriculture
AMBARISH G. MOHAPATRA1 AND SAROJ KUMAR LENKA2
1Dept.
of Applied Electronics and Instrumentation, Silicon Institute of Technology, Orissa, India
2Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering, FET, MITS University, Lakshmangarh, Rajasthan
*Corresponding Author Email:- [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract: Land is broadly defined as the physical environment consisting of relief, soil, hydrology, climate and
vegetation insofar as they determine the land use. The value of a tract of land depends on its location, size, distance
from the market and nature of potential use besides the productivity of its soil. Precision agriculture is about whole
farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources like required soil nutrients
and micro organisms. The proposed method can be utilized for the monitoring of different soil nutrients using wireless
sensor network (WSN). The proposed optical MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) based sensor can be utilized
for the monitoring of different soil parameters. In this paper we have analyzed the numerical model of the optical
MEMS based sensor for the efficient monitoring of soil parameters using MOEMS (Micro-Opto-Electro-Mechanical
System) based Microspectrometer.
Keywords: Soil nutrients, MEMS, MOEMS, Microspectrometer, Wireless Senor Network
1. INTRODUCTION:
The scientific study of soil probably started in the mid-nineteenth century and was dominated by
geologists, chemists and plant physiologist. According to Justus Von Liebig (1840), the “law of
restitution” propounded by him states that whatever is being taken by plants from the soil needs
to be restored to maintain the nutrient supply capacity of the soil.
The soil is composed of partly weathered, un-weathered and transformed products of rocks and
minerals, and organic matters. So soil material less that 2mm size constitutes, according to
international convention, the soil sample, the rest of the soil matrix being rejected as unimportant.
If complete analysis of soil is made, a large number of elements are detected. But only those,
which provide nourishment to the plant and take part in the plant metabolism, are essential. An
element is said to be essential if the plant cannot complete its life cycle without it, if the element
is specific in its physiological function in plants, and if the malady that develops in plants in its
absence can be remedied only by that element. Some of the elements considered essential for the
growth of green plants were carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium,
calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, manganese, zinc, copper, molybdenum, boron and chlorine.
Some of the nutrients are listed in table 1 as primary nutrients, secondary nutrients and
micronutrients.
Table 1: List of primary, secondary and micronutrients
Primary nutrients


Nitrogen
Potassium
Secondary nutrients



Calcium
Sulfur
Magnesium
Micronutrients







Boron
Chlorine
Copper
Iron
Manganese
Molybdenum
Zinc
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Ambarish et al. / IJAIR
ISSN: 2278-7844
Table 2: List of 16 essential nutrients
The 16 Essential Nutrients
Boron
Calcium
Carbon
Chlorine
Copper
Oxygen
Phosphorus
Potassium
Hydrogen
Iron
Magnesium
Manganese
Molybdenum
Nitrogen
Sulfur
Zinc
Figure 1: Crop Requirement, Nutrient Chart
The mineral nutrient elements are conventionally classified as macro, secondary and micro, based
on the relative amounts that are normally present in plants but not on their relative importance.
Some of the 16 essential nutrients are listed in table 2 along with a brief crop requirement chart is
also shown in figure 1. Nitrogen phosphorus and potassium are the macro nutrient elements,
calcium, magnesium and sulfur are the secondary elements and rests are micronutrient elements.
2. CROP SELECTION REQUIREMENTS:



Requirements of nutrients vary from crop to crop.
High-yielding perennial gross species are easy to manage and can remove significant
amount of nutrients.
Summer and winter inter-cropping systems need to be considered.
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Ambarish et al. / IJAIR
ISSN: 2278-7844
3. PRINCIPLE OF DESIGN OF THE SOIL NUTRIENT SENSING SYSTEM:
Optical diffuse reflectance sensing in visible and near-infrared (NIR) wavelength ranges is one
approach to rapidly quantify soil properties for spectroscopy. Such optical methods have been
investigated by many researchers due to their attractive advantages over electrochemical
technology, such as non-destructive measurement and no need to take a soil sample [2] shown in
figure 2. In principle, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy is based on the interaction between
incident light and soil surface properties, such that the characteristics of the reflected light vary
due to the soil physical and chemical properties [3]. Optical sensing that uses reflectance
spectroscopy to detect the level of energy absorbed/reflected by soil particles and nutrient ions. A
proposed sensing device is mentioned below.
Figure 2: Basic principle of optical soil nutrient sensing
A commercially available soil analyzer that provides the color-developing reagents for the six soil
nutrients may be used for the analysis mentioned in table 3 [8]. Table 3 shows LED and photodetector based absorption spectra of color developed by standard solution for the measurement of
soil nutrients.
Table 3: Absorption spectra of color-developed standard solutions [8]
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Ambarish et al. / IJAIR
ISSN: 2278-7844
4. ANALYSIS OF SOIL PARAMETERS USING WSN (WIRELESS SENSOR
NETWORK) BASED ENVIRONMENT:
In the past few years, new trends have emerged in the agricultural sector. Precision agriculture
concentrates on providing the means for observing, assessing and controlling agricultural
practices. An irrigation management model based on mathematical calculation is proposed for the
better crop yield. The system employs a group of WSN nodes deployed in the potato field for
sensing the necessary parameters and the RF communication of WSN node is used to transmit the
measured data to base station. The proposal is made on the fact that the optimum irrigation is one
of the key factors to improve the crop yield. The WSN node plays an important role in measuring
and transmitting the valuable data from agricultural field to base station and irrigation
management system. Figure 4 is an Outline of a WSN deployment in a crop field.
Figure 4: WSN environment in each node for soil parameter sensing
It covers a wide range of agricultural concerns from daily herd management through horticulture
to field crop production. It concerns as well pre- and post-production aspects of agricultural
enterprises. A facet of precision agriculture concentrates on site- specific crop management. This
encompasses different aspects, such as monitoring soil, crop and climate in a field; generalizing
the results to a complete parcel; providing a decision support system (DSS) for delivering insight
into possible treatments, field-wide or for specific parts of a field; and the means for taking
differential action, for example, varying in real-time an operation such as fertilizer, lime and
pesticide application, tillage, or sowing rate.
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Ambarish et al. / IJAIR
ISSN: 2278-7844
CONCLUSION:
The proposed system emphasises on precision agriculture where the agriculture and farming is
one of the industries which have recently diverted their attention to WSN, seeking this cost
effective technology to improve its production and enhance agriculture yield standard. The sensor
node, which is small in size and low in power consumption, shows significant potential in this
context. This system possesses tremendous potential to monitor and control the complete process
of agriculture in a large area. Further it was found that proper irrigation management and data
collection for particular crop can be done using WSN node effectively. Irrigation management
using WSN can ensure a better crop yield of good quality in spite of the stressful environmental
conditions and also increases the application efficiency of irrigation system.
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