Inspiration
Farm yield depends heavily on the quality of soil used to grow crops. Sensors to measure soil quality can be expensive and create significant overhead for farmer's revenue. This project aims to create a low cost, low power agricultural sensor to measure the moisture and nutrient content (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium) of farmland. An integrated circuit implementation promises low cost at scale and low power consumption.
What it does
Different nutrients and moisture respond strongest to different frequencies of electrical excitation. By measuring the impedance of the soil at a range of frequencies the concentration of these important nutrients can be quantified. Our design implements an RV32i RISC-V microcontroller to control measurements and store data. A voltage waveform of a specified frequency is generated using a digital-analog converter and applied across the soil. The resulting current is measured using a transimpedance amplifier. The data is then sent to the RV32i core after going through an analog-digital converter. Our chip also implements SPI protocol to interface with a generic external system for data collection.
How we built it
We designed our chip using Cadence Virtuoso for analog and mixed signal blocks and Synopsys Synthesis for digital blocks. Our design will be fabricated using a TSMC 180 nm process in a 5mm^2 die.
Built With
- cadence
- synopsys
- synthesis
- virtuoso
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