Note:
README last updated February 2025
WaDAR (Water Radar) is an open-source project that enables low-cost, high-accuracy soil moisture sensing using backscatter tags**. The system combines in-ground passive backscatter tags with above-ground radars to achieve wireless soil moisture monitoring with fine-grain resolution.
This project is based on the research published in Low-cost In-ground Soil Moisture Sensing with Radar Backscatter Tags and aims to make precision agriculture more affordable and scalable for farmers worldwide.
The system consists of three main components:
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Backscatter Tag | A passive backscatter tag buried underground |
| Radar | An above-ground UWB impulse radar |
| Signal Processing Code | Processes radar signals for soil moisture estimation |
The following paths display a the high-level structure and description of each folder. Each individual folder contains a README with more information.
├── 01_dsp # C and MATLAB signal processing pipelines required to process radar signals for soil moisture estimation
├── 02_uwb # Software and hardware for the Chipotle UWB radar
├── 03_backscatter_tag # Software and hardware for the passive backscatter tag
├── 04_data # Instructions on accessing radar frame data
├── 05_misc # Teros 12 software for comparison and shutdown script
├── 06_legacy # Software for old hardware and old WaDAR project(s)
For issues relating to software and hardware, please create an issue in this repository.
If you use this project in your research, please cite:
C. Josephson, M. Kotaru, S. Katti, K. Winstein, R. Chandra,
"Low-cost In-ground Soil Moisture Sensing with Radar Backscatter Tags,"
COMPASS '21, June 28 - July 2, 2021, Virtual Event, Australia.
DOI: 10.1145/3460112.3472326