SENSIRRIKA - Advanced sensor systems for precision irrigation in karst landscape

Project Summary

First part of the research aims to development of an advanced electromagnetic (EM) karst soil moisture sensor.

Second part of the research refers to cost-effective sensors for plant water balance monitoring that need to be densely deployed due to high within-field variability of soil. The sensors are ultra low power and use energy harvesting. They form wireless sensor network providing sensor data integration over field area. The network uses open communication technologies enabling scalability and upgrading.

In third part of the research data from a field demonstrator are agronomically validated.

In this project we will use our expertise in irrigation of karst; modelling of EM soil properties and design of advanced EM sensors; application of wireless sensor networks in agriculture; and design of ultra low power sensor interfaces, energy harvesting systems and networked embedded systems. We will demonstrate the developed system in field and transfer the knowledge and experiences to professional community and industry.

 

Project Duration

The project duration is from March 1st 2017 to February 28th 2021.

 

Project Team

  • Vedran Bilas, Principal Investigator, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
  • Guido D'Urso, Researcher, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy
  • Sabine Rosner, Researcher, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Siences, Vienna, Austria
  • Emile Martincic, Reseracher, Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, France
  • Darko Vasić, Researcher, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
  • Monika Zovko, Researcher, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture
  • Hrvoje Džapo, Researcher, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
  • Dinko Oletić, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
  • Davorin Ambruš, Researcher, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
  • Marko Gazivoda, Doctoral student, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing

 

Acknowledgment

This research project has been fully supported by Croatian Science Foundation under the project IP-2016-06-8379.

Contact

Professor Vedran Bilas
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
FER-ZESOI, Unska 3, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia
tel: + 385 1 612 9974
e-mail: vedran (dot) bilas (at) fer (dot) hr

 

 


News

Golden medal awarded for the best...

The innovation titled:

"Senzorski sustav za ranu ultrazvučnu detekciju biljnih simptoma suše"

presented by assistant professor Dinko Oletić was awarded the golden medal at the 12th International fair of  innovations in agriculture, food industry and agricultural machinery AgroARCA. The fair was held in Prelog, Croatia, July 2nd - 4th, 2021.
 

Author: Dinko Oletić
Invited talk at the IEEE ConTEL 2021

Assistant professor Dinko Oletić gave an invited talk titled:

"Designing field deployable plant water stress sensors based on ultrasonic xylem emissions monitoring"

at the Workshop: Smart technologies for sustainable agriculture, organized within the IEEE ConTEL 2021 on July 1st, 2021. The international ConTEL conference was held at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Elelctrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, from 30th June to 2nd July, 2021.
 

Author: Dinko Oletić
Journal paper accepted for...

Paper titled

"Low-power sensor interface with a switched inductor frequency" 

by Marko Gazivoda and Vedran Bilas, has been accepted for publication in open-access journal MDPI Sensors.

Author: Dinko Oletić

Paper titled

"Close-Range Electromagnetic Tracking of Pulse Induction Search Coils for Subsurface Sensing

by D. Ambruš, M. Šimić, D. Vasić and V. Bilas,  has been published in the top I&M journal IEEE TIM.

Author: Vedran Bilas
Field-testing of the developed plant...

SENSIRRIKA research team is proud to present the developed sensor node for plant water-stress monitoring. The solar-powered sensor node enables in-field acquisition, analysis, storage and wireless communication of information on water-stress level, gathered from ultrasonic xylem cavitation emissions data. During the October 2020, team conducted a series of succesful functional field-trials of the device in the University of Zagreb's test-vineyard Jazbina. Researchers dr. Dinko Oletić, doc. Monika Zovko and dr. Davorin Ambruš participated in field activities.

Author: Dinko Oletić
International project workshop...

International project workshop was held on November 6th, 2020 as a virtual event. The workshop was titled "Towards in-field application of acoustic emissions in water-stress monitoring" and was coorganized within the IEEE 2020 International Workshop on Metrology for Agriculture and Forestry, promoting the international visibility. Project team members Prof. Sabine Rosner, Dr. Dinko Oletic and Prof. Emile Martincic presented the project results.

Author: Dinko Oletić
Journal paper accepted for...

A research paper titled

"Passive extraction of signal feature using a rectifier with a mechanically switched inductor for low power acoustic event detection" 

by Marko Gazivoda, Dinko Oletić, Carlo Trigona and Vedran Bilas has been accepted for publication in open-access journal MDPI Sensors.

Author: Dinko Oletić
Journal paper accepted for...

A research paper titled

"Time-frequency features of grapevine’s xylem acoustic emissions for detection of drought stress"

by Dinko Oletić, Sabine Rosner, Monika Zovko and Vedran Bilas has been accepted for publication in Elsevier Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

Author: Dinko Oletić
Paper presented at DTIP'2020

Paper "Designing Micro-Mechanical Cantilever Resonator Arrays for Wideband Detection of Ultrasonic Xylem Cavitation Emissions Related to Plant Water-Stress" by Dinko Oletic, Etienne Herth, David Bouville, Emile Martincic, Vedran Bilas has been presented at the Symposium on Design, Test, Integration & Packaging of MEMS and MOEMS - DTIP'2020 held as a virtual event from June 15th - June 26th, 2020.

Author: Vedran Bilas
Seminar: Current development of Earth...

Profesor Guido D'urso, Universita' degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, will give talk on

Current development of Earth Observation techniques for monitoring and management of agroforestry systems

on Friday, January 24th at 10:00 AM in D160 at FER.

Guests are very welcome!

Author: Vedran Bilas

Research papers 

"Embedded Front-End for Xylem Sap Velocity Measurement with Single Pulse-Heated NTC Probe", by Dinko Oletic, Boris Snajder and Vedran Bilas

"Characterization and comparison of envelope detectors for wake up sensor interfaces at audio frequencies", by Marko Gazivoda, Dinko Oletic and Vedran Bilas,

were accepted  for the flagship IEEE IMS conference IEEE I2MTC 2020 in Dubrovnik, Croatia from May 26th to May  28th, 2020.

Author: Vedran Bilas
Dinko Oletic presented outcomes of...

On December 10th 2019 Dinko Oletic gave public lecture on 

"Transferring knowledge on microelectromechanical design – plant embolism sensors for agriculture",

at University of Zagreb, Faculty of Elelctrical Engineering, presenting his research outcomes and experiences from his stay at C2N, France, within the UKF "Gaining Experience" programme. 

Author: Vedran Bilas

A review paper titled 

"How thirsty the crops are: emerging instrumentation for plant-based field measurement of water stress"

by Dinko Oletic and Vedran Bilas has been published in IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Magazine.

Paper is available here.

Author: Vedran Bilas
Paper presented at IEEE Sensors 2019

A research paper titled

"Piezoelectric sensor front-end for energy-efficient acquisition of ultrasonic emissions related to water-stress in plants"

by Dinko Oletić and Vedran Bilas, has been presented at the flagship IEEE conference IEEE Sensors 2019 in Montreal, Canada, October 27-30, 2017.

Author: Vedran Bilas

Postdoc researcher Dinko Oletic (rght) started with his specialization at Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies (C2N), CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, France at July 1st.

Author: Vedran Bilas
Vedran Bilas invited to present at...

Vedran Bilas gave talk on Networked embedded sensors in smart agriculture at the round table on Digital transformation in agriculture organized by the Croatian Chamber of Economy, Innovation Centre Nikola Tesla and the Croatian Academy of Engineering. The round table consisted of 6 invited talks from academia (UNIZG FER and UNIZG AF), industry (Fortenova, Agrivi) and supporting institution (Innovation Centre) and covered topics from technology trends to market needs and EU framework for collaboration in digital transformation. 

Author: Vedran Bilas

Following our contact during first two years of SENSIRRIKA, two prominent researchers joined the project team in the third year:

- Professor Sabine Rosner, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria and 

- Professor Emile Martincic, Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, France.

Their expertise in plant physiology and MEMS sensors design and fabrication will strongly boost our capabilities in development of passive ultrasound plant embolism sensors.

Author: Vedran Bilas
Dinko Oletic received UKF Gaining...

Postdoc researcher Dinko Oletic received UKF Gaining Experience Grant Award for his research proposal 

Transferring knowledge on microelectromechanical design – plant embolism sensors for agriculture.

DInko will spend 5 months at Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies (C2N), CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, France under supervision of Professor Emile Martincic gaining hands-on experience in methods, tools, processes and equipment for design, fabrication and characterization of MEMS resonators.

 

Author: Vedran Bilas
Vedran Bilas presented a paper at the...

Vedran Bilas Dinko attended the IEEE I2MTC 2019 in Aucklnad, New Zealand and presented the poster of the paper M. Gazivoda, D. Oletic, C. Trigona, V. Bilas, "Measurement of Weak Signal Energy at Acoustic Frequencies by using RMSHI as a Passive Conditioning Circuit".

Author: Vedran Bilas
Visit to Department of Agricultural...

As part of activities of project SENSIRRIKA, funded by Croatian Science Foundation, Assitant Professor Monika Zovko, University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture, visited Department of Agricultural Sciences, Naples University Federico II, Naples, Portici, Italy. Prof. Guido D'Urso introduced her to development of operational solutions for irrigation management, exploitation of agro-forestry resources and plants to meet specific agricultural and forest resource management needs. She also visited Ariespace, a spin-off of the University of Naples Federico II, as well as Italian National Research Council in Cosenza (Rende). Prof. Zovko presented research area related to project SENSIRRIKA.

Author: Vedran Bilas
Conference paper presented at the...

In September 2018, Dinko Oletić and Marko Gazivoda attended the Eurosensors 2018 Conference in Graz, Austria. Dinko presented the poster of the paper describing a design of an ultra-low-power always-on sensor wake-up interface, applicable for acoustic emissions monitoring. Paper is now available in open access.

Author: Dinko Oletić
Dinko Oletić presented a paper at the...

Dinko Oletić and Vedran Bilas attended the IEEE I2MTC 2018 in Houston, USA. Dinko presented the poster of the paper titled "Time-frequency pattern wake-up detector for low-power always-on sensing of acoustic events".

Author: Vedran Bilas
Davorin Ambruš presented his work at...

From October 30th to November 1st 2017 Davorin Ambruš and Vedran Bilas attended the IEEE Sensors 2017 Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. Davorin Ambruš held the oral presentation of his paper titled "Sensitivity Profile of Compact Inductive Sensor for Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Topsoil".

Author: Dinko Oletić
Experimental field work at the...

On 5th October 2017, doc. dr. Monika Zovko and dr. Dinko Oletić visited the test vineyard Jadrtovac (Šibenik, Croatia), within planned field-experimental work activities for 2017. Objective of the trip was collection of soil samples for laboratory analysis, in order to derive design requirements for the electromagnetic soil sensor.

Author: Dinko Oletić
Paper accepted for 2017 IEEE Sensors...

A research paper titled "Sensitivity Profile of Compact Inductive Sensor for Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Topsoil" by Davorin Ambruš, Dorijan Špikić, doc. Darko Vasić and prof. Vedran Bilas, was accepted  for publication at the flagship conference IEEE Sensors 2017 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK from October 30th to November 1st, 2017.

Author: Dinko Oletić
Monika Zovko presented her work at...

From 16th to 20th July 2017 doc. dr. Monika Zovko attended the ECPA 2017 - 11th European Conference on Precision Agriculture, held in Edinburgh, UK. There, she presented her work under the title "Hyperspectral imagery as a supporting tool in precision irrigation of karst landscapes". Paper can be accessed here.

Author: Dinko Oletić
Experimental field work at the...

On 07.06.2017. research team consisting of doc.dr. Monika Zovko of Faculty of Agriculture, and dr. Dinko Oletić visited the locality of the vineyard Jadrtovac (Šibenik, Croatia), at which field-experimental work within the SENSIRRIKA project is planned. Field work included the collection of soil samples required for laboratory research of soil-water senors, and introduction of Dinko Oletić to referent measurement methods of the drought-related plant-physiological parameters  (i.e. leaf water potential using the pressure chamber method).

Author: Dinko Oletić
Visit to Centre for Nanoscience and...

As part of activities of project SENSIRRIKA, funded by Croatian Science Foundation, dr. Dinko Oletić visited Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Pariz, France. Profesor Emile Martincic introduced him to technology and research work related to development of new sensors. Dr. Oletić presented research area of the LISS and ideas for future collaboration related to project SENSIRRIKA.

Author: Vedran Bilas

SENSIRRIKA - Advanced sensor systems for precision irrigation in karst landscape