Contactless Soil Moisture Mapping Using Inexpensive Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave RADAR for Agricultural Purposes

Soil Moisture (SM) is one of the most critical factors for a crop’s growth, yield, and quality. Although Ground-Penetrating RADAR (GPR) commonly used in satelite observation to analyze soil moisture, it not cost-effective agricultural applications. Automotive uses concept Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) more competitive terms price. This paper evaluates viability using as substitute GPR moisture content estimation. The research consisted four experiments, results show that RADAR’s output signal sensor SEN0193 have high correlation with values 0.93 when SM below 15%. Such tested (and its working principle) are able determine water (with certain limitations) non-intrusive, proximal sensing manner.