Internet of Things (IoT) for double ring infiltrometer automation

Double ring infiltrometer is a simple device used to measure water infiltration rate in the soil, one of the most important hydro physical characteristics and an essential parameter for various applications including: surface irrigation and drainage projects, infiltration or water purification basins, seepage losses at canals, soil leaching at waste storage sites. However, the high spatial variability of a soil makes a single point measurement rarely representative of an entire field. Nonetheless, Double Ring Infiltration tests are tedious, time consuming and require continuous attention, hence limiting the number of tests that may be performed simultaneously on a given site. In the present research, an automated Internet of Things (IoT) double ring infiltrometer (DRI) is developed and validated in a loamy field. It consists of a DRI equipped with an ESP-32 microcontroller chip, a GPS module, a solenoid valve, a DIY conductance water level sensor, and a SD card module powered by a 12 V 11000mAh Li-ion battery charged by a 10 W solar panel. The double ring infiltrometer is designed to calculate the infiltration rate in real time, to store the data with the time stamp and geographical coordinates on an SD card or, to use a cloud service platform to upload the data over the internet. The aim is to facilitate soil infiltration mapping for precision agriculture and to build a soil infiltration inventory that could be used to continuously improve existing soil database. The system was assembled and tested at nine different locations on a loamy soil experimental field. For validation, conventional (manually operated) tests were conducted at the same time. The system proved to be reliable (R2 = 0.99), cost effective (115$) and a hassle-free solution, ideal for multiple soil infiltration measurements.