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MEMS Devices in Agriculture

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Advanced Mechatronics and MEMS Devices II

Part of the book series: Microsystems and Nanosystems ((MICRONANO))

Abstract

This chapter is dedicated to Micro-electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices developed for primary use in agriculture. We can see MEMS devices in ink jet printers (printer heads), automobiles (e.g., airbag accelerometer), projectors (digital micromirror device for DLP projectors), mobile devices (e.g., gyroscopes for smartphones, tablets, etc.), healthcare applications (e.g., lab-on-a-chip for the detection of multiple tropical infectious diseases), among others. Although it is expected to grow, the use of MEMS devices used in agriculture still comes down to a few cases in research centers. However, due to demand for improved agricultural processes and the future widespread use of the Internet of Things (IoT), a high demand for small size, low cost, low power, and easily mass produced devices is expected. This context suggests the use of MEMS devices for both sensing elements, and for energy harvesters. In this chapter, only the sensor elements whose major use is agriculture will be addressed. From this perspective, the main parameters used in agriculture will be addressed taking into account research and development ever held in MEMS devices for measuring these parameters. These key parameters are grouped into classes: environment, soil, agricultural crops, and livestock. For almost all of the parameters shown, MEMS devices showed encouraging results. Most work with MEMS for agriculture has been done in laboratories so far. However, transitioning to field applications seems feasible. Potential advantages of MEMS are: small size, economical production (specially in large scale), built-in electronics (for auto-calibration, self-testing, digital compensation, and digital communications), and low power consumption—ideal for the use in Precision Agriculture complemented by Internet of Things. In short, this chapter will allow researchers developing MEMS devices to have a knowledge of what has already been developed for agriculture and to have an idea of future needs in this field.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Utilize changes in the physical and electrical properties of the sensitive elements when exposed to the different atmospheric humidity conditions of the surrounding environment, and provide a measure of the humidity due to some amount of adsorption and desorption of water vapor molecules.

  2. 2.

    Instrument to measure moisture tension [56].

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Acknowledgements

This work is financed by the ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 Programme, and by National Funds through the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project «POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006961»

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  1. INESC TEC (formerly INESC Porto) and School of Science and Technology, UTAD University, Vila Real, Portugal

    Antonio Valente

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  1. York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Dan Zhang

  2. University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada

    Bin Wei

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Valente, A. (2017). MEMS Devices in Agriculture. In: Zhang, D., Wei, B. (eds) Advanced Mechatronics and MEMS Devices II. Microsystems and Nanosystems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32180-6_17

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