Periodic Reporting for period 1 - finapp cosmic ray neutron sensing (Scaling up the FINAPP Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensing probe.)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-08-01 do 2024-07-31
The water present in the soil and in the snow represents extremely sensitive data for various sectors. Monitoring soil moisture is crucial in agriculture to irrigate efficiently, save water and costs, and obtain a healthier and more abundant harvest. It is also important for fire and hydrogeographic instability simulations. The snow water equivalent is a crucial parameter for water availability forecasting for spring/summer and for hydroelectric power production. The ability to measure soil moisture in depth even in urban environments are a disruptive opportunity in the pre localization of leaks along aqueducts. The Cosmic-ray-neutron (CRNS) sensing technology, thanks to the great advantage to measure water in large scale, in depth without any contact with the soil could address all the problematic in a very disruptive way. Finapp make CRNS easy, compact and with a competitive price to make a complex and expensive technology like CRNS available for everyone. It will ensure a unthinkable water management solution at 360° from agriculture to water reservoir management and finally for localization of water leaks.
During the first year, the probe was further engineered to reduce its complexity, production cost and size. Silicon Photomultiplier was inserted to make the instrument more resistant, smaller and easier to produce on a large scale. Artificial intelligence algorithms were introduced to reduce noise and increase the efficiency of the instrument, as well as a technological upgrade of the electronic board to make the instrument easier to use by everyone. The technological upgrade obtained were unthinkable until a few years ago, making an extremely complicated technology like CRNS accessible to everyone.
Making the CRNS technology easy-to-use in agriculture is one of the two major goals of the ongoing project. In this first year we have demonstrated that it is possible to use the instrument with excellent results in static as well rover mode. The heat-maps of the soil water content can be obtained with a very high precision. The technological upgrade carried out this year has made the instrument usable on agricultural machinery, effectively making the technology usable for precision agriculture. The soil moisture map with our resolution is currently a layer of precision agriculture not yet present on the market which therefore requires validation by stakeholders and a very important marketing strategy to make the product known to all associations and/or farmers. The second pillar is the search for water losses. The level of reliability and compactness of the instrument will guarantee greater precision in the field of measurement, with further reduction of costs and the possibility of deploying the solution all over the world. We currently reduce the time by 1/3 and the cost by ½ of the best method on the market to locate water leaks, making the tool disruptive. The speed is such that it will be possible to change the paradigm and no longer spend money to repair a single leak but spend the same money to replace entire sections of the most damaged pipes, making the process of renewing the aqueduct more precise and much faster.