Source: UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA submitted to
CPS: MEDIUM: DIG, SIP, BREATHE: AUTOMATED MONITORING OF CARBON AND WATER CYCLES IN AGRICULTURE
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
NEW
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1029656
Grant No.
2023-67021-38977
Project No.
NEB-99-919
Proposal No.
2022-09346
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
A7302
Project Start Date
Jan 1, 2023
Project End Date
Dec 31, 2025
Grant Year
2023
Project Director
Bradley, J.
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
(N/A)
LINCOLN,NE 68583
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Timely foreknowledge of soil water content (SWC) and soil organic content (SOC) has the potential to strongly impact watering and sequestration decisions, throughout the growing season. But currently, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of these is costly and time-consuming. Barriers include high equipment costs, infrastructure installation, and sensing capabilities. Our recent technological breakthrough in aerial robotics, the capability to dig into soil, coupled with advances in sensing technologies gives us the ability to build unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to largely automate this process. We address the issue of SOC/SWC monitoring, reporting, and verification by building a multi-agent UAS team and accompanying controllers, task planners, and machine-learning classifiers capable of persistent atmospheric monitoring via tethered UAS, and heterogeneous sampling UAS for insertion of key sensor probes, and extraction of soil samples for automated collection. Together the UAS and algorithms provide a mechanism to collect automated, accurate, and high temporal and spatial resolution (e.g., much higher than satellites) SWC and SOC data which we then make available to the public. The data can be easily used to help make timely agricultural, sequestration, and water management decisions by stakeholders.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
25%
Applied
15%
Developmental
60%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1110430202050%
1330199202050%
Knowledge Area
133 - Pollution Prevention and Mitigation; 111 - Conservation and Efficient Use of Water;

Subject Of Investigation
0430 - Climate; 0199 - Soil and land, general;

Field Of Science
2020 - Engineering;
Goals / Objectives
The proposed work will develop solutions for utilizing multi-agent unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for monitoring, reporting, and verification of SOC and SWC in agricultural settings. To achieve this we will:1. Develop novel UAS systems and sensors for providing initial estimates of SOC/SWC.2. Design novel UAS controllers, and mechanisms capable of soil extraction, and insertion of SWC probes.3. Develop machine learning algorithms to predict key soil properties from sensed data; and predict carbon content from atmospheric readings from the UASs.4. Build smart sampling algorithms to task UASs with optimal locations and sampling strategies to reduce uncertainty in SOC/SWC estimates.5. Expand our existing smart sampling software into a package for easy use with ESRI software commonly used by USDA.6. Regularly evaluate the above objectives at local representative facilities in collaboration with our science experts.
Project Methods
The work proposed will develop the systems, theories, and algorithms needed to enable improved measurement and monitoring of water and carbon in agricultural settings. While the proposed work is executed in the context of carbon sequestration MRV the theories and algorithms will be more broadly applicable to other environmental sensing applications and systems. Specifically, the work will develop smart sampling strategies that use in-situ measurements to improve sampling locations. It will also develop machine-learning algorithms to improve prediction of other key environmental properties based on persistent atmospheric monitoring. Finally, the work here will develop aerial robotic systems capable of soil extraction potentially benefitting a wide-array of environmental sampling applications.

Progress 01/01/23 to 12/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:During the reporting period the target audience was primarily a combination of land owners, company technologists, sensor company technologists, and researchers in the domain of soil water/carbon properties. The company technologists and researchers attended a key public demonstration of our robotic soil collection technology and we sought their expertise in collecting useful feedback for future designs. We also targeted our local research community through several timed publicity pieces drawing attention to our work in this area. In that vein we conducted many local tours and took the opportunity to showcase our soil collecting drone. In summer 2023 4 Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) students were tasked with helping develop the soil collecting mechanism exposing them to robotics concepts and how robotics can help in researching climate change. In the robotics space, researchers were the target audience for our publications in this area at the ISER robotics symposium held in November 2023. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?1. Advised 1 GRA and 2 other graduate students on enhanced rock weathering for CO2 sequestration in agricultural soils. 2. Organized a field day with students, faculty, farm management staff, and local industry. Integrated new Licor 710 sensor for measuring ET on CRNS datalogger and firmware. 3. Working with USDA scientists and ESRI on SSPOT soil sampling web application. 4. Advised 2 GRAs on developing the soil extraction mechanism 5. Advised 2 GRAs on developing the smart sampling and UAS planning algorithms 6. Advised 2 GRAs on developing additional UAS/robotic infrastructure to support initial estimates of soil carbon/water. 7. Advised 2 of the GRAs in submitting to NSF GRFP 8. 4 undergraduate Research Experience for Undergraduates (REUs) advised on development of soil extraction mechanism 9. Students demonstrated the soil extraction mechanism at the organized field day for stakeholders How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?1. Organized a field day with students, faculty, farm management staff, and local industry. Integrated new Licor 710 sensor for measuring ET on CRNS datalogger and firmware. 2. Working with USDA scientists and ESRI on SSPOT soil sampling web application. 3. Demonstrated soil collection mechanism to company/interested stakeholders 4. Demonstrated tethered UAS system and published paper in the robotics community about the development of our localization algorithm that provides precise positioning information for low atmospheric sampling. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?? Goal 1. The tethered UAS will be expanded to collect a wider array of atmospheric data related to soil carbon/water sampling. The tethered UAS will be expanded to host mobile, robotic sensors along the tether allowing them to move to locations where the best measurements are likely to be obtained. Collect field and laboratory data to support MS thesis for Kalley Collins (exp. Graduation date May 2025). This includes completing pre and post application geochemical sampling of ERW experiment for Ni and Mg. Complete X ray fluorescence and visible near infrared analysis of soil samples. Continue to monitor CRNS soil moisture and ET from Licor 710 sensor over experimental plot. Collect pore water samples from 15 lysimeters within the experiment. Goal 2. In consultation with our science collaborator implement and test soil carbon/water probe insertion via drone. Goal 3. Work with senior personnel Wolf and Co-PI Franz to develop ML-based methods to produce initial estimates based on data gathered from Tethered UAS Goal 4. Finalize sliding MDP algorithm for UAS planning and decision making and implement onto UAS to produce novel resampling method (exp. Graduation date for Trent Wiens May 2025). Goal 5: Launch SSPOT tool in Q1/2 of 2024.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1. Designed and executed an enhanced rock weathering experiment at ENREC field site. This includes geochemical monitoring and modelling to estimate CO2 sequestration from tracking the fate of Ni and Mg. Developed, implemented, tested, and demonstrated tethered UAS system for collecting low-atmosphere data at precise locations. Currently, only temperature is collected, but infrastructure to support the collection of temperature-humidity, CO2, wind, and other data is being developed. Developed and published new algorithm for localizing precise position of initial estimates of carbon in the atmosphere. Goal 2. Developed, implemented, tested, and demonstrated UAS soil extraction mechanism. Mechanism attaches to existing COTS UAS/drones and fully automates the soil extraction mechanism. Designed with Collaborator Franz to extract a 6"x1" cylinder of soil and return for scientific analysis. Goal 4. Significantly enhanced existing smart sampling algorithm tasking UASs with optimal locations and sampling strategies. The algorithm can incorporate newly acquired information into the planning and solve complex decision-making and planning problems at runtime. Goal 5. Working with USDA and ESRI to launch SSPOT web application in early 2024. This will also serve as a priori information of UAV soil sampling in task 4. Goal 6. Demonstrated the soil extraction mechanism in a representative environment in collaboration with both science experts and company/interested stakeholders.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2023 Citation: X. Zhang 3and J. Bradley, End-to-end design of a hybrid sampling controller for a multicopter uas, IEEE Transactions on Robotics (under review), 2024
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: D. Rico 3, F. Mu�oz Arriola, J. Bradley, and C. Detweiler, Analytics for real-time inertial localization of the tethered aircraft unmanned system, in International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER). Springer International Publishing, 2023
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2023 Citation: B. Balasubramaniam 3, I. Ahmed, H. Bagheri, and J. Bradley, Carving out control code: Automated identification of control software in autopilot systems, ACM Transactions on CyberPhysical Systems (under review), 2023