All-optical active sensing platform for continuous and sustainable soil water content monitoring

• DOI: 10.1016/j.optlaseng.2024.108209
• Publication Date: 2024-04-04T01:58:20Z
• Authors: Gaia Maria Berruti; Marco Leone; Patrizio Vaiano; Giovanni Vito Per...; Marco Consales; Andrea Cusano
• Keywords: Environmental Monitoring; Active monitoring

The determination of the amount moisture in soil is crucial several application fields such as agricultural, geotechnical, hydrological, and environmental engineering. In this paper, we propose use an advanced all-optical self-heated sensing platform for highly sensitive repeatable monitoring volumetric water content (VWC). proposed realized by integrating, inside a standard metallic needle, fiber optic heating device integrated with Bragg grating sensor (FBG) acting thermal monitor. all optical active consists two main components: i) core offset fusion splice between single mode fibers to spread light from cladding ii) metal-coated region where FBG inscribed. A full characterization has been performed different VWC values 9 36 %VWC temperature range 5 40 °C. Collected results demonstrate that able perform stable, fast, robust energy efficient measurements content, repeatability error 1.5 %VWC, time response ≤ 10 s resolution 0.25 %VWC. possibility tuning value injected power according makes extremely flexible versatile its exploitation large areas and/or long-distance applications relevant advantages terms savings, costs system complexity.