DAMP

DAMP is a portable, self-contained, connected sensor for soil profile analysis, enabling precision agriculture.
The device is easy to use and allows real-time, on-site data acquisition to quickly provide: moisture profile, salinity, input profile, temperature profile, organic matter quantity.
This device aims to help farmers adapt their crops to global warming and soil depletion.
The solution has been developed to meet increasingly stringent environmental standards in various markets and at reasonable costs, and can be used in other applications such as buildings or snow cover analysis.

The technology is based on an innovative method of RF standing wave analysis to measure the dielectric constant and electrical conductivity of the analyzed soils.The system consists of:

• A Radio Frequency (RF) printed circuit

• Chained sensors

• A data base

• A wireless data transmission.

• Simultaneous measurements of moisture, salinity and temperature of multi-layered materials
  
• Simultaneous measurements of liquid water content, water equivalent, height and temperature of snow layers
• Better determination of the nature of each layer than TDR (combines advantages of TDR and FDR)
• Minimum thickness of one layer = 3 cm
• Measurable depth: from a few centimeters to a few kilometers
• Measurement radius from 1 cm to more than 15 cm
• Versatile (handheld device or can remain buried on the same site)

A prototype was developed and validated the concept for each use case (agricultural plots of land, snowfields).

• Snow: planning the production of electricity generation, improving the quality of ski slopes, securing the snowpack, estimating the quality of artificial snow
• Agriculture: irrigation management, management of the quantity of organic matter. Eventually, analysis of soil quality by measuring inputs (under study)
• Environmental monitoring