AUTOMATION OF THE ANALYSIS OF SOIL PROPERTIES FROM AN ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY SENSOR USING THE ARDUINO MICROCONTROLLER

Abstract

Due to the environmental impacts that improper handling causes to the soil, the definition of production areas using tools such as soil electrical conductivity sensors helps to perform a faster analysis of the soil type and help in the decision to be taken for soil correction. The aiming of this research was to investigate the correlation between the conductivity of the soil and its properties, in order to perceive the viability of the application of the electrical conductivity sensors in making decisions for soil correction, seeking to automate the data collection process aimed at greater efficiency in the same chemical analysis. In other words, that automation of data collection tends to work with the needs of the precision agriculture, such as looking for ways to spend less in agricultural activities and setting up ideal terms for agricultural crops. The results are promising, because they show that the sensor used with the Arduino microcontroller to measure electrical resistance of the soil may be a useful tool for measurements of some properties of the soil.