New Capacitive Sensor for In-situ Soil Moisture Estimation

Abstract

Moisture content and density play important roles in many industries and applications. These parameters must be determined rather frequently in the construction industry particularly in road construction, in environmental studies and generally in soil investigations. In practice, these are primarily estimated through various invasive methods, derived from time-consuming and labour-intensive soil sampling. Alternatively, nuclear probes – which are hazardous, expensive to maintain and require a well-trained user to operate – are also being used in this context. However, due to their drawbacks especially the risk to human health and rigorous user certificate requirements, there exis..