Calibration and data validation of wireless sensor network

摘要

Soil moisture is an important parameter in the study of agriculture, ecology and carbon cycle. However, it has great difficulties to retrieve soil moisture content using remote sensing techniques. Even, field measurements can hardly reflect the spatial variation of soil moisture, due to the tremendous heterogeneity in its spatial distribution. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), as a new technology for ground data collection, has been gradually applied to various fields. This novel technique has great advantages in monitoring soil moisture content, obtaining the soil moisture data in real time from multiple sites and different depths. Taking Huailai remote sensing comprehensive experimental station of Chinese Academy of Sciences for example, this paper introduces the calibration and data validation of soil moisture wireless sensor network. Oven drying method is used to calibrate the soil moisture sensor EC-5. The analysis indicates that the data measured by EC-5 had fairly well accuracy, so that the further calibration is not necessary. Data validation experiments had been taken from three aspects: data validity verification, temporal and spatial validation. It is clear to see that WSN data reveals the changes of soil moisture both in spatial domain and in different depths. Although the soil moisture data measured by WSN still do not have enough absolute accuracy, its continuous real-time data can clearly reflect the temporal and spatial relative variation, and the wide installation of sensors enables the data be obtained by the large amount, which was practically unavailable before.