Improvements in a Wireless Telemetry System in Support of Precision Agriculture

WUGs were developed through 5-years of research development testing and evaluation (RDT&E). The st 1 generation WUGs are commercially available with 1200 WUGs deployed at 60+ locations in the United States most notably in California and Northern Texas monitoring 20+ crops. Problem & Opportunity: According to 2013 USDA Irrigation Survey growers irrigated 52.6 million acres of cropland applying 88.5 million acre-feet of water 55% of which was pumped from ground water wells. The cost of energy attributed to pumped irrigation was $2.7 billion ~$17000 per farm. Precision irrigation has the potential to increase US crop yields by at least 10% and up to 80% in certain areas while reducing water and pumping associated power consumption by up to 50% as well as improving crop quality decreasing fertilizer usage and reducing non-point source pollution runoff and leaching. [Ref 9] The interference of traditional surface soil moisture sensors and telemetry equipment with cultural operations (tilling spraying harvest etc.) is a perennial issue obstructing mass adoption of sensor-based precision irrigation systems. Overhead imagery solutions are superb tools for identifying symptoms of and locating crop stress but do not provide continuous real-time measurements focus on canopy and surface conditions are limited by weather and operational capabilities and are unable to provide specific diagnostics or prescriptive solutions. GroGuru WUGs solve these challenges as they are fixed in the ground below till depth can remain in place for ~5-years provide real-time continuous data production and transmission and can be considered complimentary to aerial solutions.Objectives: The technical progress achieved through Phase I RDT&E will expand system deployment opportunities through improved and optimized coil design Quality Factor noise floor operating frequency modulation scheme data transmission and encoding. These technical objectives will enable mobile telemetry applications specifically UAV and center pivot mounted receivers that are essential to removing all fixed surface level telemetry equipment and driving market adoption of sensor-based previous irrigation management systems.