skip to main content
research-article
Open access

Soil-Monitoring Sensor Powered by Temperature Difference between Air and Shallow Underground Soil

Published: 18 March 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Energy harvesting (EH) technologies are useful for the semi-permanent operation of wireless sensor networks, especially, for agricultural monitoring as the networks need to be installed in large areas where power supply is unavailable. In this paper, we propose a battery-free soil-monitoring sensor for agriculture, which leverages the temperature difference between near-surface air and shallow underground soil using a thermoelectric generator (TEG). The performance of systems driven by the TEG mainly depends on the average temperature between the hot and cold sides of the TEG (T) and the temperature difference across the TEG (ΔT). If T is low and ΔT is small, it is challenging to earn enough power to drive wireless microcontroller unit; however, with our dedicated electric circuit, and thermal designs including impedance matching of thermal circuit and suppression of heat loss, the sensor can harvest more than a hundred microwatt on average from the temperature difference between the air and underground soil at a depth of 30 cm. The performance of the energy harvester is evaluated both by numerical analysis using temperature data collected from various farm fields and by a prototype implementation. Moreover, the prototype was deployed to farm fields in Japan and India. Our field experiment results revealed that the prototype could harvest 100 μW-370 μW on average, and drive a wireless microcontroller unit to perform soil monitoring.

References

[1]
Amen Agbossoua, Qi Zhanga, Gael Sebald, and Daniel Guyomar. 2010. Solar Micro-Energy Harvesting Based on Thermoelectric and Latent Heat Effects. Part I: Theoretical Analysis. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 163, 1 (Sept. 2010), 277--283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2010.06.026
[2]
Alpha Company Ltd. 2016. LC100. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.micforg.co.jp/dxf/LC.pdf
[3]
Analog Devices Inc. 2020. LTC3109-Auto-Polarity, Ultralow Voltage Step-Up Converter and Power Manager. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/3109fb.pdf
[4]
Patricia Aranguren, David Astrain, Antonio Rodríguez, and Alvaro Martínez. 2015. Experimental Investigation of the Applicability of a Thermoelectric Generator to Recover Waste Heat From a Combustion Chamber. Applied Energy 152 (Aug. 2015), 121--130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.04.077
[5]
Isabelle Bord, Pascal Tardy, and Francis Ménil. 2006. Influence of the Electrodes Configuration on a Differential Capacitive Rain Sensor Performances. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 114, 2 (April 2006), 640--645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2005.06.049
[6]
Pedro C. Dias, Andreu Cabot, and J. A. Siqueira Dias. 2018. Evaluation of the Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting Potential at Different Latitudes Using Solar Flat Panels Systems with Buried Heat Sink. Applied Sciences 8, 12 (Dec. 2018), 1--14. https://doi.org/10.3390/app8122641
[7]
Pedro C. Dias, Doris Cadavid, Silvia Ortega, Alejandro Ruiz, Maria Bernadete M. França, Flávio J. O. Morais, Elnatan C. Ferreira, and Andreu Cabot. 2016. Autonomous Soil Moisture Sensor Based on Nanostructured Thermosensitive Resistors Powered by an Integrated Thermoelectric Generator. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 239 (Jan. 2016), 1--7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2016.01.022
[8]
Pedro C. Dias, Flávio J. O. Morais, Maria Bernadete M. França, Elnatan C. Ferreira, Andreu Cabot, and José A. Siqueira Dias. 2015. Autonomous Multisensor System Powered by a Solar Thermoelectric Energy Harvester with Ultralow-Power Management Circuit. IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 64, 11 (June 2015), 2918--2925. https://doi.org/10.1109/tim.2015.2444253
[9]
Piotr Dziurdzia, Ireneusz Brzozowski, Piotr Bratek, Wojciech Gelmuda, and Andrzej Kos. 2016. Estimation and Harvesting of Human Heat Power for Wearable Electronic Devices. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 104 (Jan. 2016), 1--8. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/104/1/012005
[10]
Jean-Pierre Fleurial, G. Jeffrey Snyder, Jennifer A. Herman, Marshall C. Smart, Partha Shakkottai, Pierre H. Giauque, and Marc A. Nicolet. 1999. Miniaturized Thermoelectric Power Sources. In Proceedings of the 34th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference. SAE International, 1--5. https://doi.org/10.4271/1999-01-2569
[11]
Zhidong Han and Alberto Fina. 2011. Thermal Conductivity of Carbon Nanotubes and Their Polymer Nanocomposites: A Review. Progress in Polymer Science 36, 7 (July 2011), 914--944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2010.11.004
[12]
Max A. Hilhorst. 2000. A Pore Water Conductivity Sensor. Soil Science Society of America Journal 64, 6 (Nov. 2000), 1922--1925. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj2000.6461922x
[13]
HIOKI E.E. Corp. 2020. Compact Temperature Data Logger | LR5011, LR5021. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.hioki.com/en/products/detail/?product_key=5668
[14]
HIOKI E.E. Corp. 2020. Compact Voltage Data Logger | LR5041, LR5042, LR5043. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.hioki.com/en/products/detail/?product_key=5687
[15]
Japan Meteorological Agency. 2018. Climate of Hokkaido District. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/cpd/longfcst/en/tourist/file/Hokkaido.html
[16]
Japan Meteorological Agency. 2018. Climate of Kanto/Koshin District. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/cpd/longfcst/en/tourist/file/Kanto_Koshin.html
[17]
Japan Meteorological Agency. 2020. Past Weather Data. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/risk/obsdl/index.php
[18]
William A. Jury and Robert Horton. 2004. Soil Physics. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, USA.
[19]
Hiromasa Kaibe, Kyoko Makino, Takashi Kajihara, Shinichiro Fujimoto, and Hirokuni Hachiuma. 2012. Thermoelectric Generating System Attached to a Carburizing Furnace at Komatsu Ltd., Awazu Plant. AIP Conference Proceedings 1449, 1 (June 2012), 524--527. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4731609
[20]
Aman Kansal, Jason Hsu, Sadaf Zahedi, and Mani B. Srivastava. 2007. Power Management in Energy Harvesting Sensor Networks. ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems 6, 4 (Sept. 2007), 1--32. https://doi.org/10.1145/1274858.1274870
[21]
KELK Ltd. 2020. Thermo Generation Module Data. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.kelk.co.jp/english/generation/data_1.html
[22]
Michail E. Kiziroglou, Steven W. Wright, Tzern T. Toh, Paul D. Mitcheson, Thomas Becker, and Eric M. Yeatman. 2013. Design and Fabrication of Heat Storage Thermoelectric Harvesting Devices. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics 61, 1 (April 2013), 302--309. https://doi.org/10.1109/tie.2013.2257140
[23]
Daniel Kraemer, Bed Poudel, Hsien-Ping Feng, J. Christopher Caylor, Bo Yu, Xiao Yan, Yi Ma, Xiaowei Wang, Dezhi Wang, Andrew Muto, Kenneth McEnaney, Matteo Chiesa, Zhifeng Ren, and Gang Chen. 2011. High-Performance Flat-Panel Solar Thermoelectric Generators with High Thermal Concentration. Nature Materials 10 (May 2011), 532--538. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3013
[24]
Erika Lawrence and G. Jeffrey Snyder. 2002. A Study of Heat Sink Performance in Air and Soil for Use in Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting Device. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Thermoelectrics. IEEE, 446--449. https://doi.org/10.1109/ict.2002.1190357
[25]
Vladimir Leonov, Tom Torfs, Paolo Fiorini, and Chris V. Hoof. 2007. Thermoelectric Converters of Human Warmth for Self-Powered Wireless Sensor Nodes. IEEE Sensors Journal 7, 5 (April 2007), 650--657. https://doi.org/10.1109/jsen.2007.894917
[26]
Xun Liu, Yadong Deng, Zhi Li, and Chuqi Su. 2015. Performance Analysis of a Waste Heat Recovery Thermoelectric Generation System for Automotive Application. Energy Conversion and Management 90 (Jan. 2015), 121--127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.11.015
[27]
Daniela Magnetto and Guilhem Vidiella. 2012. Reduced Energy Consumption by Massive Thermoelectric Waste Heat Recovery in Light Duty Trucks. AIP Conference Proceedings 1449, 1 (June 2012), 471--474. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4731598
[28]
Clay Maranville. 2012. Thermoelectric Opportunities for Light-Duty Vehicles. In 3rd Thermoelectrics Applications Workshop 2012. Office of Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy, 1--13.
[29]
Boris Mazar. 2012. State of the Art Prototype Vehicle with a Thermoelectric Generator. In 3rd Thermoelectrics Applications Workshop 2012. Office of Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy, 1--13.
[30]
METER Group Inc. 2020. 5TE Soil Moisture, Temperature, and Electrical Conductivity Sensor. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.metergroup.com/environment/articles/meter-legacy-soil-moisture-sensors
[31]
Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. 2018. NTC Thermistors. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.murata.com/-/media/webrenewal/support/library/catalog/products/thermistor/ntc/r44e.ashx?la=en-us
[32]
National Instruments Corp. 2018. NI9211 Datasheet. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/373466a_02.pdf
[33]
Panasonic Corp. 2020. Batteries Panasonic Alkaline Handbook Professional. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://batteries.eu.panasonic.com/batteryfinder/v3.0/_pdfs/Alkaline-Handbook.pdf
[34]
Bed Poudel, Qing Hao, Yi Ma, Yucheng Lan, Austin Minnich, Bo Yu, Xiao Yan, Dezhi Wang, Andrew Muto, Daryoosh Vashaee, Xiaoyuan Chen, Junming Liu, Mildred S. Dresselhaus, Gang Chen, and Zhifeng Ren. 2008. High-Thermoelectric Performance of Nanostructured Bismuth Antimony Telluride Bulk Alloys. Science 320, 5876 (May 2008), 634--638. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1156446
[35]
Vijay Raghunathan, Aman Kansal, Jason Hsu, Jonathan Friedman, and Mani B. Srivastava. 2005. Design Considerations for Solar Energy Harvesting Wireless Embedded Systems. In Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN '05). IEEE, 457--462. https://doi.org/10.1109/ipsn.2005.1440973
[36]
Yoshiro Sakai, Yoshihiko Sadaoka, and Masanobu Matsuguchi. 1996. Humidity Sensors Based on Polymer Thin Films. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical 35, 1--3 (Sept. 1996), 85--90. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0925-4005(96)02019--9
[37]
Priscila G. V. Sampaio and Mario O. A. González. 2017. Photovoltaic Solar Energy: Conceptual Framework. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 74 (July 2017), 590--601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.02.081
[38]
Faisal K. Shaikh and Sherali Zeadally. 2016. Energy Harvesting in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Comprehensive Review. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 55 (March 2016), 1041--1054. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.11.010
[39]
Yongming Shi, Yao Wang, Yuan Deng, Hongli Gao, Zhen Lin, Wei Zhu, and Huihong Ye. 2014. A Novel Self-Powered Wireless Temperature Sensor Based on Thermoelectric Generators. Energy Conversion and Management 80 (April 2014), 110--116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.01.010
[40]
Yasutomo Shirahama, Ryo Shigeta, Yoshihiro Kawahara, and Tohru Asami. 2015. Implementation of Wide Range Soil Moisture Profile Probe by Coplanar Plate Capacitor on Film Substrate. In Proceedings of IEEE SENSORS 2015 (IEEE Sens. '15). IEEE, 1--4. https://doi.org/10.1109/icsens.2015.7370633
[41]
James W. Stevens. 1999. Optimized Thermal Design of Small ΔT Thermoelectric Generators. In Proceedings of the 34th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference. SAE International, 1--6. https://doi.org/10.4271/1999-01-2564
[42]
Storm Prediction Center. 2020. Beaufort Wind Scale. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html
[43]
Mária Telkes. 1954. Solar Thermoelectric Generators. Journal of Applied Physics 25, 6 (June 1954), 765--777. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1721728
[44]
Texas Instruments Inc. 2019. CC1310 SimpleLink Ultra-Low-Power Sub-1 GHz Wireless MCU. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cc1310.pdf
[45]
Texas Instruments Inc. 2019. CC2650 SimpleLink Multistandard Wireless MCU. Retrieved January 20, 2020 from http://www.tij.co.jp/jp/lit/ds/symlink/cc2650.pdf
[46]
Christopher M. Vigorito, Deepak Ganesan, and Andrew G. Barto. 2007. Adaptive Control of Duty Cycling in Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks. In the 4th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON '07). IEEE, 21--30. https://doi.org/10.1109/sahcn.2007.4292814
[47]
Ning Wang, Li Han, Hongcai He, Nam-Hee Park, and Kunihito Koumoto. 2011. A Novel High-Performance Photovoltaic-Thermoelectric Hybrid Device. Energy & Environmental Science 4 (Aug. 2011), 3676--3679. https://doi.org/10.1039/c1ee01646f
[48]
Wensi Wang, Victor Cionca, Ningning Wang, Mike Hayes, Brendan O'Flynn, and Cian O'Mathuna. 2013. Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting for Building Energy Management Wireless Sensor Networks. International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 9, 6 (June 2013), 1--31. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/232438
[49]
Qi Zhanga, Amen Agbossoua, Zhihua Feng, and Mathieu Cosnier. 2010. Solar Micro-Energy Harvesting Based on Thermoelectric and Latent Heat Effects. Part II: Experimental Analysis. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 163, 1 (Sept. 2010), 284--290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2010.06.027

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Powering Agriculture IoT Sensors Using Natural Temperature Differences Between Air and Soil: Measurement and EvaluationSensors10.3390/s2423768724:23(7687)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Underground Ink: Printed Electronics Enabling Electrochemical Sensing in SoilMicromachines10.3390/mi1505062515:5(625)Online publication date: 7-May-2024
  • (2024)Intermittent Inference: Trading a 1% Accuracy Loss for a 1.9x Throughput SpeedupProceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems10.1145/3666025.3699364(647-660)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies  Volume 4, Issue 1
March 2020
1006 pages
EISSN:2474-9567
DOI:10.1145/3388993
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 March 2020
Published in IMWUT Volume 4, Issue 1

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. Energy harvesting
  2. Field experiment
  3. Smart agriculture
  4. Thermoelectric generation

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)307
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)36
Reflects downloads up to 13 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Powering Agriculture IoT Sensors Using Natural Temperature Differences Between Air and Soil: Measurement and EvaluationSensors10.3390/s2423768724:23(7687)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Underground Ink: Printed Electronics Enabling Electrochemical Sensing in SoilMicromachines10.3390/mi1505062515:5(625)Online publication date: 7-May-2024
  • (2024)Intermittent Inference: Trading a 1% Accuracy Loss for a 1.9x Throughput SpeedupProceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems10.1145/3666025.3699364(647-660)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Adaptable Runtime Monitoring for Intermittent SystemsProceedings of the Nineteenth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/3627703.3650070(1175-1191)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
  • (2024)Understanding the Needs of Novice Developers in Creating Self-Powered IoTProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642576(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Harvesting Energy From Soil-Air Temperature Differences for Batteryless IoT Devices: A Case StudyIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.341465212(85306-85323)Online publication date: 2024
  • (2024)Harvesting thermal energy from spring water using a flexible thermoelectric generatorEnergy Conversion and Management10.1016/j.enconman.2024.118605313(118605)Online publication date: Aug-2024
  • (2024)Experimental and computational investigation of passive heat exchangers to enhance the performance of a geothermal thermoelectric generatorApplied Thermal Engineering10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2024.123819254(123819)Online publication date: Oct-2024
  • (2024)Advances in the applications of thermoelectric generatorsApplied Thermal Engineering10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2023.121813236(121813)Online publication date: Jan-2024
  • (2023)Design and Experimental Investigation of a Thermoelectric Conversion Device with Power Management for Forest Fire MonitoringForests10.3390/f1403045114:3(451)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2023
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Login options

Full Access

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media