A Survey of Wireless Soil Sensing Technologies

Abstract

This survey overviews recent advancements in wireless soil sensing technologies, such as sensors and communication systems to manage and enhance soil health and crop production for sustainable agricultural practices. The surveyed technologies are categorized by the target sensing parameters, such as moisture, temperature, salinity, pH, nutrient concentration, pressure, and heavy metals content. Special focus is placed on the passive and semi-passive sensing principles for soil data collection, communication systems for transmitting the sensed data, and machine learning approaches for data processing and analysis to assist in informed decision-making in the realization of sustainable agriculture. By comparing existing technologies, we highlight the advantages and disadvantages of these sensing mechanisms, summarize existing challenges of the surveyed soil sensing systems, and identify future research directions that need attention.