Determination of soil water content in situ is complicated due to variations in dielectric constant of porous media. Time domain reflectometry (TDR) may meet the need for measurement of soil moisture with high accuracy. However, TDR-type instruments are expensive. A theory, which is called standing-wave ratio (SWR) of transmission line, is proposed in this paper. This theory has been proven a valuable tool for measuring soil water content. A method for calculating the characteristic impedance of a four-wire probe was developed. Furthermore, a prototype of a SWR-type sensor equipped with a new soil probe was designed.The measurement error was found to be within

A polarized He-Ne laser light was used in a laboratory environment to measure soil moisture content. Depolarization of the light beam was used as an indicator of dielectric constant, which, in turn, indicated soil moisture content. Fourier analysis was used to analyze the signals. The DC component and the second harmonic of the Fourier spectrum were used to calculate the degree of depolarization. This method greatly reduced the effects of noise from various sources on the measurement of degree of depolarization. Three soil types (silt-loam, loam, and loam-sand) were tested. For all three soil types, degree of depolarization decreased with an increase of moisture content. The change was most significant for loam, followed by silt loam and loam sand.

A soil moisture sensor with low-cost, reliability and sufficient accuracy has been desired for many years. This paper presented an improved measurement method based on FD principle for determining soil water content. Unlike other measurement principles, a new measurable index, which is independent of the output impedance and the amplitude of the oscillator but relies on the electric impedance of the multi-pin probe, was proposed. Moreover, a model for treating the impedance of the multi-pin soil probe was also discussed and several important electric properties were approached. In order to confirm the theoretical analysis, the necessary experiments were conducted. Finally, using obtained modeling, the relationship between the proposed index and soil volumetric water content was linearly corrected.

A soil moisture sensor with low-cost, reliability and sufficient accuracy has been desired for many years. This paper presented an improved sensor for determining soil water content. Unlike other measurement principles, an index, which is independent of the output impedance and the amplitude of the oscillator but relies on the impedance of the multi-pin probe, was proposed. Moreover, a model for treating the impedance of the multi-pin probe was also discussed and the necessary experiment was conducted. Finally, the relationship between the proposed index and soil volumetric water content was linearly corrected.

Three types of optical sensors at wavelength ranging from visible to NIR, were used in laboratory environment for determining soil moisture content. Some index was defined to reduce measurement error caused by scatter. Two different sands and clay were tested from air dry to saturated conditions. The test results demonstrated that all tested sensors were very sensitive to soil texture and particle-size distributions. Because the wavelength from visible to NIR varies within the sizes of sand and clay, soil should not be viewed as a material with homogeneous property under optical measurement methods.