Development and Application of Fiber-Optic Sensing Technology for Monitoring Soil Moisture Field

• Published in: Frontiers in sensors Vol. 2
• Main Authors: Sun, Meng-Ya, Shi, Bin, Guo, Jun-Yi, Zhu, Hong-Hu, Jiang, Hong-Tao, Liu, Jie, Wei, Guang-Qing, Zheng, Xing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A 14.01.2022
• Subjects: application; fiber-optic sensing technology; sensor development; soil moisture field; soil pore gas humidity; soil water content
• ISSN: 2673-5067; 2673-5067
• DOI: 10.3389/fsens.2021.796789

Accurate acquisition of the moisture field distribution in in situ soil is of great significance to prevent geological disasters and protect the soil ecological environment. In recent years, rapidly developed fiber-optic sensing technology has shown outstanding advantages, such as distributed measurement, long-distance monitoring, and good durability, which provides a new technical means for soil moisture field monitoring. After several years of technical research, the authors’ group has made a number of new achievements in the development of fiber-optic sensing technology for the soil moisture field, that is, two new fiber-optic sensing technologies for soil moisture content, including the actively heated fiber Bragg grating (AH-FBG) technology and the actively heated distributed temperature sensing (AH-DTS) technology, and a new fiber-optic sensing technology for soil pore gas humidity are developed. This paper systematically summarizes the three fiber-optic sensing technologies for soil moisture field, including sensing principle, sensor development and calibration test. Moreover, the practical application cases of three fiber-optic sensing technologies are introduced. Finally, the development trend of fiber-optic sensing technology for soil moisture field in the future is summarized and prospected.