• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-94
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• 1998

Due to relatively high permittivity of water in soils, we placed the soil condenser into soils to measure the soil moisture content. The soil condenser was made with two insulated iron sticks. The capacitance of the soil condenser was determined by the pulse period from RC type oscillation circuit and the highest voltage output accepting 10MHz pulse. After zero point adjustment, the measured relative capacitance percentage (RCS) to the standard condenser obtained by the oscillation circuit almost linearly correlated with the end depth of the sensor submerged in water. The RC type oscillation was disturbed by many sensor installed in a close distance in one place, presumably resulting in that the sensor sticks played as a interfering antennas generating or accepting electron waves from them. The temperature dependance of the output from the sensors could be corrected through experimentally determined revision function. Although lineal correlation was found between soil moisture and RCS, users should derive their own correlation function for every sensor to measure soil moisture, because the outputs were influenced by the installation depth and layout in the soil. The voltage type sensor responded inversely with soil moisture content and so was not suitable to the accurate measurement of soil moisture, but allows high economic benefit in various application such as simplified measurement of soil moisture and irrigation line control because of its low component count. The voltage type moisture sensor could be reinforced by relay controlling circuit to open and to close the solenoid valves respectively at optimal limits of the least and the most soil moisture according to user's adjustment.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2021

A capacitive water sensor was developed to measure the capacitance over a wide part of a substrate using an insulated electrode plate (30 cm × 10 cm) with copper and Teflon attached on either side of the substrate. This study aimed to convert the capacitance output obtained from the condenser-type capacitance sensor into the substrate water content. The quantification experiment was performed by measuring the changes in substrate water weight and capacitance while providing a nutrient solution and by subsequently comparing these values. The substrate water weight and capacitance were measured every 20 to 30 seconds using the sensor and load cell with a software developed specifically for this study. Using a curve-fitting program, the substrate water content was estimated from the output of the capacitance using the water weight and capacitance of the substrate as variables. When the amount of water supplied was increased, the capacitance tended to increase. Coefficient of variation (CV) in capacitance according to the water weight in substrate was greater with the 1.0 kg of water weight, compared with other weights. Thus, the fitting was performed with higher than 1.0 kg, from 1.7 to 6.0 kg of water weight. The correlation coefficient between the capacitance and water weight in substrate was 0.9696. The calibration equation estimated water content from the capacitance, and it was compared with the substrate water weight measured by the load cell.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.128-133
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• 2008

In this paper, in order to analyze property of frequency response in microphone using optical sensor, acousto-optic sensor system has been implemented. The capacitance microphone and fiber-optic transmission path type fiber-optic microphone (FOM) have weaknesses in directivity, size, weight, and price. However suggested optical microphone can be constituted by cheap devices, so it has many benefits like small size, light weight, high directivity, etc. Head part of optical microphone which is suggested in this paper is movable back and forth by sound pressure with the attached reflection plate. Operating point has also been determined by measuring the response characteristics. The choosing the point, which has maximum linearity and sensitivity has changing the distance between optical head and vibrating plate. We measured the output of the O/E transformed signal of the optical microphone while frequency of sound signal is changed using sound measurement /analysis program, "Smaart Live" and "USBPre", which are based on PC, and compared the result from an existing capacitance microphone. The measured optical microphone showed almost similar output characteristics as those of the compared condenser microphone, and its bandwidth performance was about 4 kHz at up to 3 dB.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.8-15
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• 2008

In this paper, in order to analyze property of frequency response in optical microphone, system was implemented. The capacitance microphone and fiber-optic transmission path type fiber-optic microphone (FOM) have weaknesses in directivity, size, weight, and price. However suggested optical microphone can be constituted by cheap devices, so it has many benefits like small size, light weight, high directivity, etc. Head part of optical microphone which is suggested in this paper is movable back and forth by sound pressure with the attached reflection plate. Operating point is determined by measuring the respond characteristics and choosing the point on which has maximum linearity and sensitivity while changing the distance between optical head and vibrating plate. We measured the output of the O/E transformed signal of the optical microphone while frequency of sound signal is changed using sound measurement/analysis program, Smaart Live and USBPre, which are based on PC, and compared the result from an existing capacitance microphone. The measured Optical microphone showed almost similar output characteristics as those of the compared condenser microphone, and its bandwidth performance was about 300[Hz]-3[kHz] at up to 3 [dB].