Development and implementation of a low-cost data acquisition system using single-board computers to measure volumetric water content

The work described in this thesis is aimed at exploring the use of single-board computers, specifically the Raspberry Pi platform, to measure volumetric water content of soils or other porous media. We first investigated the different methods to condition and measure signal frequencies. Subsequently, we designed and fabricated a Hardware Attached on Top frequency counter add-on board for the Raspberry Pi based on the reciprocal frequency counting method, and found that this accurately and precisely measures frequency signals from water content reflectometers. We then built a dormant deploy-and-forget sensor system around this hardware. The system will be used at our research field site in Brunei Darussalam to measure volumetric water content of peat. Further work focuses on improvements to the encapsulation of the electronic hardware, and designing a multiplexer-controlled relay board to acquire signals from multiple reflectometers simultaneously.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Ali, Mohamad Idaly Bin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Charles F. Harvey.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119312

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/119312