No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to determine the contamination level in natural water resources because the tremendous development in the agriculture sector has increased the amount of contamination in natural water sources. Hence, the water is polluted and unsafe to drink. Design/methodology/approach – Three types of sensor arrays were suggested: parallel, star and delta. The simulation of all types of sensor array was carried out to calculate the sensors’ impedance value, capacitance and inductance during their operation to determine the best sensor array. The contamination state was simulated by altering the electrical properties values of the environmental domain of the model to represent water contamination. Findings – The simulation results show that all types of sensor array are sensitive to conductivity, σ, and permittivity, ɛ (i.e. contaminated water). Furthermore, a set of experiments was conducted to determine the relationship between the sensor’s impedance and the water’s nitrate and sulphate contamination. The performance of the system was observed where the sensors were tested, with the addition of distilled water with different concentrations of potassium nitrate and potassium sulphate. The sensitivity of the developed sensors was evaluated and the best sensor was selected. Practical implications – Based on the outcomes of the experiments, the star sensor array has the highest sensitivity and can be used to measure nitrate and sulphate contaminations in water. Originality/value – The star sensor array presented in this paper has the potential to be used as a useful low-cost tool for water source monitoring.

Agriculture is one of the important sectors for food supplies. Therefore, a tool for monitoring the agro-environment is important in order to maintain the permanence of agricultural soils. This paper suggests an alternative method for the detection of water content in soils by developing a sensor array with a combination of planar meander and interdigital electromagnetic sensors. The study involved sensor array fabrication using the printed circuit board (PCB) method. The experimental setup consisted of a frequency waveform generator and a signal oscilloscope to collect and analyse the sensors’ output, with VEE Agilent software used to establish the interface. A set of experiments was conducted to determine the relationship between the sensors’ output and the soils’ parameters. The performance of the system was observed where the sensors were tested with the addition of various kinds of soil samples with different concentrations of water content. The sensitivity of the developed sensors was evaluated where the best sensor was selected. Based on the outcomes of the experiments, the Y sensor array placement has the highest sensitivity and can be used to measure the water content in the soils where the data accuracy is compared