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Measurement 41 (2008) 381390 www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

Measuring soil temperature and moisture using wireless MEMS sensors

Tyronese Jackson a, Katrina Manseld a, Mohamed Saa Tommy Colman c, Peter Romine d
b c

b,*

a NSF-REU Site, Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL 35762-0818, USA Center for Transportation Infrastructure Safety and Security, Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL 35762-0818, USA Center for Hydrology, Soil Climatology and Remote Sensing, Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL 35762-0818, USA d Department of Engineering Technology, Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL 35762-0818, USA

Received 28 May 2006; received in revised form 19 February 2007; accepted 21 February 2007 Available online 4 March 2007

Abstract Soil moisture and temperature are important variables in controlling the exchange of water and heat energy between the land surface and the atmosphere through evaporation and plant transportation. As a result, soil temperature and moisture play a signicant role in the development of weather patterns and the production of precipitation and irrigation. Current techniques for detecting soil moisture and temperature such as gamma attenuation, soil heat ux, and GPR are mostly surface measurements and these surface measurements cannot provide profound temperature and moisture prole. In addition the noisy environment can signicantly alter their results thus requiring a complex and expensive signal processing. The objective of this paper is to study the feasibility of using inexpensive wireless nanotechnology based devices for the eld measurement of soil temperature and moisture. The developed temperature and moisture MEMS sensors are composed of micromachined MEMS cantilever beams equipped with a water sensitive nano-polymer and an on-chip piezoresistive temperature sensor. The sensor is based on a shear stress principal, which the microsensor chip combines a proprietary polymer sensing element and Wheat stone Bridge piezoresistor circuit to deliver two DC output voltages that are linearly proportional to moisture and temperature. Preliminary results obtained from embedded wireless MEMS for soil temperature and moisture measurements are presented in this paper. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Soil; Moisture; Temperature; Wireless MEMS; Monitoring

1. Introduction Continuous monitoring of soil moisture and temperature is very important in dierent areas such as
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 256 372 4114; fax: +1 256 372 5586. E-mail address: mohamed.saa@aamu.edu (M. Saa).

hydrology, soil science, geotechnical, ecology, meteorology and agronomy. For example, soil moisture and temperature are important parameters in monitoring slope failure and land slide. Soil moisture and temperature are also important variables in controlling the exchange of water and heat energy between the land surface and the atmosphere through evaporation and plant transportation. As

0263-2241/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.measurement.2007.02.009

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a result, soil temperature and moisture play a significant role in the development of weather patterns and the production of precipitation and irrigation. Current techniques for detecting soil moisture and temperature such as gamma attenuation, soil heat ux, time-domain reectometry and ground penetration radar (GPR) are expensive, bulky and are mostly surface measurements and these surface measurements cannot provide profound temperature and moisture prole. In addition the noisy environment can signicantly alter their results thus requiring a complex and expensive signal processing [1]. An important goal in agriculture is the need to optimize the use of natural resources, namely water supply in irrigation systems. Irrigation management systems should have information about soil moisture at the root level of plants. With such information, irrigation water could then be provided in a more ecient way. Today a large number of sensors based on dierent methods are available for measuring soil moisture and temperature. For example, Werner [2] developed a tensiometer to measure moisture content in soil for irrigation and water management through water potential or tension developed in the tensiometer. Soil moisture content is also measured by a simple moisture probe [3] consisting of a transmission line in the feedback loop of a ring oscillator, which can be embedded in the soil to measure its moisture content. The water content inuences the frequency of the oscillator counted by a microcontroller and transformed into water content by a calibration function. Remote moisture measurements are also explored by Reindl [4] where a wireless passive surface acoustic wave (SAW) transponder is developed to measure soil moisture content. Moisture content alters the velocity of the SAW device and in returns changes the frequency of the devices. After calibration, the frequency response is used to measure the water content in the soil. A phase shift oscillator circuit having a delay line in a feedback loop is employed to determine the soil moisture content [5]. The delay line is connected to a oscillator such that the dielectric value of the medium inside the delay line inuences the frequency of the oscillator circuit. Changes in soil moisture content or water level are calculated as a function of changes in oscillator frequency over time. A method of sensing moisture based on the propagation-delay [6] is explored to provide absolute readings of volumetric water content in soil without calibrating the sensor. A fast transition is launched on a transmission line that is immersed

in soil and the amplitude of the resultant waveform is used to determine the moisture content. The present monitoring techniques present some drawbacks such as inaccuracy, high-cost and soil dependency [7]. Nanotechnology-based devices, which have matured in recent years represent an innovative solution to current monitoring techniques, leading to wireless, inexpensive, durable, compact, and high-density information collection, processing and storage devices. Nanotechnology-based MicroElectroMechnical Systems (MEMS) refer to a collection of micro- and nano-sensors and actuators, which can both, sense its environment and have the ability to react to changes in that environment with the use of a microcircuit control [811]. In addition to the conventional microelectronics packaging, they include integrated antenna structures for command signals into microelectromechanical structures for desired sensing and actuating functions. MEMS also combine the signal processing and computational capability of analog and digital integrated circuits with a wide variety of non-electrical elements [12]. This paper studies the feasibility of using wireless MEMS based devices for eld measurement of soil temperature and moisture. 2. MEMS for soil moisture and temperature monitoring As shown in Fig. 1, the proposed MEMS sensor consists of microcantilever beams capable of measuring simultaneously temperature and moisture in soil. The MEMS sensor is based on a shear stress principal for measuring water vapor, in which the microsensor chip combines a proprietary nanopolymer sensing element and Weatstone Bridge piezoresistor circuit to deliver two DC output voltages that are linearly proportional to relative humidity from 0% to 100% RH full scale and to temperature from 30 C + 100 C. A water vapor sensitive nano-polymer lm is bonded to the top of each cantilever beam and designed to expand and contract during exposure to water vapor. During sensor operation, ambient water vapor molecules in the material absorb into the sensing lm surface. They are held by weak van der Waals forces due to the polar nature of water molecules. The water molecules continue to form polar bonds with various radical groups of the polymer molecules within the lm. All of the free surfaces of the lm displace parallel and normal to the adjacent microbeam surfaces, with the exception of the lm

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383

Fig. 1. Typical MEMS for temperature and moisture sensing.

surface that is bonded to each cantilever beam. The bond constrains this lm surface and prevents it from displacing. This constraint, known as a full shear constraint, produces shear stresses at the lm/beam interface which causes the cantilever beam to deect. This deection is measured as resistance change in the embedded strain gauges, and is linearly proportional to the shear stress. Consequently, the water vapor concentration is transduced into a proportional dierential voltage change in the bridge circuit. This process is fully regenerative, depending solely upon the airborne water vapor being introduced to the sensor. The temperature is monitored by sensing the temperature of the water vapor using an on-chip tempera-

ture sensor, and the output of this sensor, changes with the changing of the water vapor temperature. 3. MEMS sensor theory The behavior of the proposed MEMS device under soil moisture generated stresses can be analyzed theoretically using mechanics of materials to obtain a relationship between the MEMS output and the applied stress. We will use the stress sensitivity of the nano-resistor to study the change on the cantilever surface. Fig. 2 shows a MEMS cantilever equipped with a nano-water vapor polymer lm. Fig. 2a shows the cantilever with an expanding lm on the top surface. As shown, the cantilever

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bends downwards and expands until the cantilever beams stress balances the stress in the thin lm. The stress in the lm rf, is compressive as the expansion is hindered by the supporting cantilever, where the bond constrains this lm surface, preventing it from displacing. This constraint, known as a full shear constraint, produces shear stresses rs at the lm/beam interface which cause the cantilever beam to deect. This deection is measured as resistance change in the embedded strain gauges, and is linearly proportional to the shear stress rs. Consequently, the water vapor concentration is transduced into a proportional dierential voltage change in the bridge circuit. This process is fully regenerative, depending solely upon the airborne water vapor being introduced to the sensor. Fig. 2b shows a cantilever beam with a contracting lm on the top, leading to a tensile stress in the lm. Therefore, a relationship between the shear stress and the change in the resistance of the resistor embedded into the cantilever can be established. The relationship between the strain eR in the piezoresistor and the change in the piezoresistor resistance R can be written as: DR k eR R 1

thickness of the layers, modulus of elasticity, the distance between the neutral axis and the resistor layer and the shear stress. A simple expression for DR was developed considering that the cantilever R beam consists of one material with modulus of elasticity E, thickness h, an innitely nano-piezorersistor thickness placed at the top of the cantilever:     DR 1 3 4 k 2 rs k rs R Eh Eh Eh From this equation, it can be seen that only the thickness and the stiness of the material inuence the sensitivity, and this sensitivity is independent of the cantilever length. This is due to the fact that the strain is picked up by the piezoresistor, which is sensitive to the local stress change or local curvature changes and not the absolute deection of the cantilever. 4. MEMS sensor design and fabrication The MEMS devices were designed and fabricated at the Alabama Center for Microelectronics Science and Technology. The 2 mm 2 mm sensor chip consists of four identical microcantilevers (20 120 380 lm). Each microcantilever beam contains an embedded strain gauge (resistor) that measures the beam stress by the piezoresistive eect. These semiconductor resistors are formed by ion impleExpanded water vapor-sensitive polymer s r

where k is the gauge factor, which is a material constant. The change in the resistance depends on the

a
Cantilever beam

Resistor

Retracted water vapor-sensitive polymer

s r Resistor

b
Cantilever beam

Fig. 2. MEMS principle.

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385

mentation and thermal diuse on into the silicon substrate of the cantilever beams. To measure the humidity, a vapor-sensing element is constructed from a polymer lm deposited and bonded to the top of four cantilever beams that are bulk micromachined from the surrounding silicon substrate. To measure temperature, an on-chip semiconducter (thermistor) temperature sensor is bonded to the top of the chip. The four strain gauges are electrically connected together into a Wheatstone Bridge circuit conguration directly on the sensor chip. Silicon material with modulus of elasticity of 7 GPa, density of 2.3 g/cm3 and thermal expansion coecient of 2.3 106/k was used to produce the MEMS sensor with a size of 2 mm 2 mm as shown in Fig. 3. The manufacturing of the MEMS temperature/ moisture sensor was performed using MEMS microfabrication technology. Manufacturing begins with standard Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) processing steps. The microsensor starts out as a blank silicon wafer. Typical CMOS steps performed on the wafer include chemical vapor deposition (CVD), oxidation, doping, diffusion and metallization. Photolithography and chemical wet etching are used to pattern and form the silicon platform and measurement structures of the sensor. A hybrid CMOS process is performed to deposit, pattern and activate the polymeric sensing element. The last hybrid process step is plasma etch to release the microcantilever beams from the surrounding silicon. Fig. 3 shows a microscopic pic-

ture of the manufactured MEMS sensor. Commercial microelectronics and related packaging technologies are used to provide sensor die in a package that is easy to handle with existing printed circuit board assembly equipment as well as easy to package with other microdevices. As shown in Fig. 4, the MEMS sensors are packaged to resist environmental attacks where the die is protected by a polymeric coating, and the chip is embedded in a stainless steel jacket. The size of the packaged sensor is 5 mm in diameter and 3 mm in thickness. 5. Wireless communication system The MEMS sensor was interfaced with a commercial available wireless communication system to monitor the soil temperature and moisture wirelessly. The wireless communication system is shown in Fig. 5 and it is composed of wireless data acquisition system and a wireless sensing node. The sensing node has 2.4 GHz RF transceiver, 2 kHz sweep rate combined with 2 MB ash memory, a unique 16 bit address, a real time streaming rate up to 736 Hz and a data logging rate up to 2048 Hz. The sensing node also contains on-board sensor excitation, bridge completion, programmable gains/o sets and dierential, and single ended inputs thereby providing an extremely versatile sensor interface. The data acquisition system is a PC equipped with 2.4 GHz transceiver and software for data acquisition and analysis. The bi-directional RF communications link can trigger the sensing

Fig. 3. Designed MEMS for temperature and soil measuring.

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packaged MEMS device was installed in the bottom of a PVC tube to form a sensing area while the wireless communication system is attached to the top of the PVC jacket. The surface of the sensing area of the PVC pipe is equipped with uniformly distributed openings with 0.5 mm in diameter to allow the transfer of soil water vapor to the MEMS for detecting purposes. The designed probe can be embedded into soil to wirelessly measure moisture and temperature at a predetermined depth. The wireless response of the probe is in bits and can be transformed into voltage using the following equation:   3:00 mV OutputVoltage OutputBits 3 4:096 Bits
Fig. 4. Packaged MEMS sensor.

7. Experimental program node from 70 m, or request real-time data to be transmitted to the host PC for data acquisition and analysis. 6. Wireless MEMS temperature/moisture sensing probe The MEMS temperature/moisture sensor was combined with the wireless sensing node to design a wireless sensing probe. As shown in Fig. 6, the The experimental program consists of three phases. In phase 1, the probe responses were evaluated outside the soil environment to study the repeatability, hysterisis property and temperature dependency. The probe sensors were evaluated using a controlled humidity chamber. As shown in Figs. 7 and 8, the probes were subjected to a relative humidity (RH) regime at a constant temperature of 25 C and 40 C. The RH was increased from 0.5% to approximately 90% and kept constant for a per-

Sensing node

EEPROM Sensor cal. coeff.,filter, parameters, 16 bit ID Microprocessor w/embedded Software algorithms 2 Mbytes Flash Memory

2.4 GHz RF transceiver

2.4 GHz RF transceiver

DAQ

Analog base station

USB/ RS 232

0-3V or 0-5V to DAQ

PC for programming display & data acquisition

Fig. 5. Typical wireless communication system.

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100 80 60 RH Regime Test 40

387
12 10 8 MEMS Sensor Response 6 4
Vout (mV)

RH (%)

20 0 0 5 10 Time (hours) 15 20

2 0

Fig. 8. Moisture test regime and MEMS moisture response at temperature = 40 C.

100 80 60 40 20 0 MEMS Sensor Response 0 1

Humidity Test Regime

15 13 11
Vout (mV)

RH (%)

9 7 5 3 1 -1 2 Time (hours) 3 4

Fig. 6. Wireless probe for soil temperature and moisture measuring.

iod of 10 h then decreased to 0.5% RH and remained constant for a period of 10 h. In addition, the probe devices were subjected to a cyclic RH regime at a constant temperature of 35 C to evaluate their recovery time and repeatability as shown in Fig. 9. The devices were also subjected to RH cycles to determine their hysteresis as shown in Fig. 10. The hysteresis of these devices was dened as the maximum dierence between two RH cycles, 6 90% and 906%. Cycling was performed in 20% RH increments with a stabilization time of 5 min
100 90 80 70 RH (%) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 5 10 Time (hours) 15 20 MEMS Sensor Response 2 0 -2 -4 Humidity Test Regime 10 8 6
Vout (mV)

Fig. 9. Cyclic moisture test regime and MEMS moisture response.

after each increment and with at a predetermined temperature. In phase 2, the probes were embedded into soil (clay) samples having dierent moisture contents (0.40.6) and their responses were evalu-

1.2 1 0.8 0.6

Vout (V)

0.4 0.2 0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.6 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Relative Humidity (%) 70 80 90 100

Fig. 7. Moisture test regime and MEMS moisture response at temperature = 25 C.

Fig. 10. Typical MEMS moisture hysteresis curve.

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Fig. 11. Field tests.

ated at laboratory conditions with a temperature of 25 C. In addition, the probes were embedded into dierent clay samples with temperature ranging from 10 to 30 C to evaluate the eect of soil temperature on their response. These laboratory tests were used to calibrate the probe. In phase 3, the probes were evaluated through led tests to determine their responses where two probes located 8 m apart were embedded 100 mm into clay (see Fig. 11) and their responses were monitored wirelessly over 1 h period. The wireless data acquisition system was located 20 m from each probe. 8. Experimental results Figs. 7 and 8 show typical MEMS outputs in response to RH regimes. It was found that MEMS  OutputBits

ature should be incorporated in the sensor response. The eect of RH regime cycles on the MEMS response is depicted in Fig. 9. As can be seen from this gure, the MEMS exhibited rapid recovery time and good repeatability. Fig. 10 shows a typical MEMS hysteresis curve after RH cycles where a good linearity between the sensors output and RH is obtained. The average hysteresis of tested devices was between 1% and 3% FS (full scale). Figs. 12 and 13 depict the wireless response of the probe due to dierent soil temperatures and moistures. As can be seen from these gures, there is a good linear relationship between moisture, temperature and their corresponding MEMS-based probe output and calibration equations for moisture and temperature were obtained:

 3:00 mV 1228:5 4:096 Bits Soil moisture content; M 14651:0546 0:0022T   3:00 mV OutputBits 414:08 4:096 Bits  Soil temperature; T C 6:90 devices exhibited response similar to the RH regime with excellent repeatability. However, there was a slight change in the sensors response after 4 h of exposure due to high temperature (specimens subjected to 40 C), indicating that the eect of temper-

The above calibration equations were embedded into the data acquisition system to measure the actual soil moisture and temperature. Figs. 14 and 15 show the wireless response of the probe and the measured temperature and moisture content

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3000 mV = 1465M + 1228.5 2900 Probe Response (Bits) R = 0.9889 2100 Probe Response (mV)
Measured Soil Moisture
2

389
20 18 Temperature Response 16 14 12 10 Moisture Response 8 6 4 2 Measured Soil Temperature (C)

2200

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2

2800 2000 2700 Bits = 2000.2M + 1677.3 R = 0.9889 2600 Response in mV Response in Bits 2500 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 Moisture Content 0.6 1800 0.65
2

1900

0.1 0 0 200 400 600 Time (seconds) 800

0 1000

Fig. 12. Eect soil moisture content on the probe response.

Fig. 15. Measured wireless soil temperature and moisture.

1000 Bits = 9.4247T + 565.35 R = 0.9884 800 Probe Response (mV) 600 Probe Response (Bits) 600 400 400 mV = 6.9029T + 414.08 R = 0.9884 200 200 Response in Bits Response in mV 0 0 10 20 30 Soil Temperature (C) 40
2 2

800

after 200 s, while the soil temperature was constant around 14.5 C. The measured temperature and moisture content corresponded well those obtained from destructive testing, indicating that the proposed probe can measure wirelessly the soil temperature and moisture eectively and with high precision. 9. Conclusions In this paper, the feasibility of using wireless MEMS-based probe for soil temperature and moisture measuring was studied analytically and experimentally. The theoretical study showed that the change in the resistance of the sensor due to moisture depends mainly on the cantilever beam thickness and modulus of elasticity, and the magnitude of the shear stress at the cantilever/polymer interface. Also it was found that only the cantilever beam thickness and stiness inuence the MEMS sensitivity, and this sensitivity is independent of the cantilever length. Short-term experimental tests indicated that the outputs of the developed MEMS-based probe reect the change in the soils moisture content and temperature. However, longterm experimental tests are required to evaluate the long-term durability of the proposed device when embedded into soil for a long period. Based on the calibration tests, the MEMS exhibited a good linear response and equations relating the MEMS output to the relative humidity and temperature were developed. Through eld tests, the soil moisture and temperature were successfully monitored using the proposed wireless MEMS. More tests are required to

Fig. 13. Eect of soil temperature on the probe response.

2380 Moisture Response

285

2360 Moisture Response (Bits) 275 2340 Temperature Response 270 2320 265

2300 0 200 400 600 Time (seconds) 800

260 1000

Fig. 14. Wireless response of the probe.

obtained from the eld tests. As in indicated in these gures, as just embedded into the soil, the moisture content increased and then stabilized around 0.35

Temperature Response (Bits)

280

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evaluate the eect of dierent soil components on the MEMS response. It is required also to test and track the eld behavior of the probe to establish both repeatability and long-term behavior of MEMS into soil. Other issues relating to wireless interrogation such as signal processing, powering, communication, location, orientation data storage, networking and computation capabilities also need to be addressed, and are currently being investigated by the authors. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the nancial support of the National Science Foundation Grants EEC 0451239 and the Alabama A&M University Center for Hydrology, Soil Climatology and Remote Sensing. The authors also thank Mr. Fenner from Hygrometrix, Inc. for his technical support and recommendations.

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