EM Transduction Based Chipless RFID Sensors for Precision

Agriculture
Precision agriculture (PA) is a management concept based on observing, measuring and responding
to inter and intra-field variability in crops. It involves the collection and processing of data in real
time to help farmers make the best decisions with regard to planting, fertilizing and harvesting
crops. Hence, this concept essentially requires obtaining the accurate information regarding the
spatial and temporal variability of soil and crop factors within a field. Therefore, it makes extensive
use of sensor technologies for yield mapping and prediction, soil sensing and irrigation control etc. in
order to address the site specific needs with spatially variable application a number of wired and
wireless sensing technologies are adopted for on-site and on the go measurement in various
agricultural sectors. However, these technologies are too expensive to be afforded by the farmers.
This instigates the necessity of inexpensive and compact real time sensors in improving the
performance and acceptability of PA. The electromagnetic transduction based passive chipless RFID
sensors could be a fantastic solution in this regard. Such sensors are mostly suitable for applications
that require sensing devices with low cost fabrication, small size and long term measurement ability.
As the currently available commercial sensors for PA are not widely accepted by the farming
community, the low cost, passive and fully printable chipless RFID sensor nodes are envisioned to
have enormous potential to become their perfect replacement. The research effort envisages the
development of such sensors to apply in precision agriculture.