Analysis of soil moisture detection using ground penetrating radar

Abstract

Soil moisture is one of the important parameters to be investigated in civil, geological and agricultural works. Unfortunately, the challenging issue is found on the suitable method in determining accurately the soil moisture. In this article, a microwave surface reflection method is proposed to analyze the effect of soil moisture with its electrical properties using ground penetrating radar (GPR) principle. Three types of soil samples are selected which are sand, loamy and clay. In this work, measurement and simulation were implemented. The work is realized by theory and verified by simulation. The percentage of agreement with Topp theoretical value are 31% to 61% for sand, 5% to 42% for clay, and 44% to 54% for loamy. The effect of soil moisture with its electrical characteristics in terms of permittivity is also discussed. A novelty of soil moisture estimation via GPR principle is intended for the research.