Fringing Field Sensor Using a Circuit-Modulated Parameter for Measuring Water Content in a Soil Sample
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 134, Issue 3
Abstract
Currently used dielectric spectroscopy methods for measuring soil water contents are highly susceptible to their electrical conductivities. Some of the existing methods are double-plate capacitance sensors. A novel technique based on the use of fringing field sensors for the content detection is presented in our work, which is able to perform real-time capacitance measurements, and process recorded data to obtain the given parameters of interest. A modulated circuit and data acquisition system are designed to meet practical application requirements, and high sensitivity of the proposed sensor to parameter variation was demonstrated based on the experimental data. An approximately linear dependency is observed between water content and measurement voltage when the proportion of water content in the soil sample is below 24% (gravimetric water content), which implies a wide-ranging application of such a technique for real-time measurements of various soil water content under field working conditions where conventional instruments are unavailable.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant from the National Science and Technology Foundation of China during the 9th Five-Year Plan Period and by a Henan Provincial Research Fund. Special thanks also go to Duan Tiecheng for his helpful assistance.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 134 • Issue 3 • June 2008
Pages: 356 - 360
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: May 21, 2007
Accepted: Sep 18, 2007
Published online: Jun 1, 2008
Published in print: Jun 2008
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