Underground Sensing

Underground Sensing: Monitoring and Hazard Detection for Environment and Infrastructure brings the target audience the technical and practical knowledge of existing technologies of subsurface sensing and monitoring based on a classification of their functionality. In addition, the book introduces emerging technologies and applications of sensing for environmental and geo-hazards in subsurface – focusing on sensing platforms that can enable fully distributed global measurements. Finally, users will find a comprehensive exploration of the future of underground sensing that can meet demands for preemptive and sustainable response to underground hazards. New concepts and paradigms based on passively powered and/or on-demand activated, embeddable sensor platforms are presented to bridge the gap between real-time monitoring and global measurements. Presents a one-stop-shop reference for underground sensing and monitoring needs that saves valuable research time Provides application cases for all technologies that are covered and described in detail Includes full, four color images of equipment and applications Designed to cover a wide variety of underground sensors, from agriculture to geohazards

Provides unique coverage of wireless sensor system applications in space, underwater, underground, and extreme industrial environments in one volume This book covers the challenging aspects of wireless sensor systems and the problems and conditions encountered when applying them in outer space, under the water, below the ground, and in extreme industrial environments. It explores the unique aspects of designs and solutions that address those problems and challenges, and illuminates the connections, similarities, and differences between the challenges and solutions in those various environments. The creation of Wireless Sensor Systems for Extreme Environments is a response to the spread of wireless sensor technology into fields of health, safety, manufacturing, space, environmental, smart cities, advanced robotics, surveillance, and agriculture. It is the first of its kind to present, in a single reference, the unique aspects of wireless sensor system design, development, and deployment in such extreme environments—and to explore the similarities and possible synergies between them. The application of wireless sensor systems in these varied environments has been lagging dramatically behind their application in more conventional environments, making this an especially relevant book for investigators and practitioners in all of these areas. Wireless Sensor Systems for Extreme Environments is presented in five parts that cover: Wireless Sensor Systems for Extreme Environments—Generic Solutions Space WSS Solutions and Applications Underwater and Submerged WSS Solutions Underground and Confined Environments WSS Solutions Industrial and Other WSS Solutions This book is a welcome guide for researchers, post-graduate students, engineers and scientists who design and build operational and environmental control systems, emergency response systems, and situational awareness systems for unconventional environments.

The use of sensors based on fibre optic technology allows a broad range of applications in the fields of structural and geotechnical monitoring, which can effectively improve the maintenance of infrastructures and the safety of communities. Thanks to its valuable features, such as distributed monitoring, the easiness and endurance of cabling, long term stability, reliable responses in both static and dynamic regimes and fibre optic technology, innovative and efficient solutions to quite difficult monitoring problems have already been provided. The increasing worldwide attention to infrastructures and communities with resilience capabilities against natural disasters has opened up new and challenging perspectives of applications to the use of fibre optic technology for structural and geotechnical monitoring. This book collects contributions in the development and application of monitoring solutions, based on fibre optic technology for structural and geotechnical engineering works and issues. In the book preface, the content of the contributions is reviewed, pointing out the relevance of the work, with respect to the advance and spreading of fibre optic technology for monitoring applications. All contributions provide a comprehensive discussion and report a rich bibliography on the current trends and issues relative to the theme of the work presented.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Information Computing and Applications, ICICA 2010, held in Qinhuangdao, China, in October 2011. The 97 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. They are organized in topical sections on computational economics and finance, computational statistics, mobile computing and applications, social networking and computing, intelligent computing and applications, internet and Web computing, paralelle and distributed computing, and system simulation and computing.

The history of Japan's agriculture is characterized by efforts to increase production and productivity. At the beginning of the 21st century, both public and private sector research has focused on developing ever-more sophisticated tools to address a wide-range of challenges facing the agricultural industry. An amazing array of automation technologies and robots have been developed in the process, to do everything from tilling fields to picking strawberries, from planting rice seedlings to autonomously weeding the paddies. This richly-illustrated volume surveys the results of these efforts, concisely and plainly presenting specific examples of the latest robotic mechanisms and practices for agricultural applications.

Soil and crop sensing is a fundamental component and the first important step in precision agriculture. Unless the level of soil and crop variability is known, appropriate management decisions cannot be made and implemented. In the last few decades, various ground-based sensors have been developed to measure spatial variability in soil properties and nutrients, crop growth and yield, and pest conditions. Remote sensing as an important data collection tool has been increasingly used to map soil and crop growth variability as spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions of image data have improved significantly in recent years. While identifying spatial variability of soil and crop growth within fields is an important first step towards precision management, using that variability to formulate variable rate application plans of farming inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides is another essential step in precision agriculture.The purpose of this book is to present the historical, current and future developments of soil and crop sensing technologies with fundamentals and practical examples. The first chapter gives an overview of soil and crop sensing technologies for precision crop production. The next six chapters provide details on theories, methods, practical applications, as well as challenges and future research needs for all aspects of soil and crop sensing. The last two chapters show how soil and crop sensing technologies can be used for plant phenotyping and precision fertilization. The chapters are written by some of the world’s leading experts who have contributed significantly to the developments of precision agriculture technologies, especially in the area of soil and crop sensing. They use their knowledge, experiences, and successful stories to present informative and up-to-date information on relevant topics. Therefore, this book is an invaluable addition to the literature and can be used as a reference by scientists, engineers, practitioners, and college students for the dissemination and advancement of precision agriculture technologies for practical applications.

Although there are many books available on WSNs, most are low-level, introductory books. The few available for advanced readers fail to convey the breadth of knowledge required for those aiming to develop next-generation solutions for WSNs.Filling this void, Wireless Sensor Networks: From Theory to Applications supplies comprehensive coverage of WS

The proceedings of the 11th International Mine Ventilation Congress (11th IMVC), is focused on mine ventilation, health and safety and Earth science. The IMVC has become the most influential international mine ventilation event in the world, and has long been a popular forum for ventilation researchers, practitioners, academics, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, consultants and government officials around the globe to explore research results, exchange best practices, and to launch new products for a better and safer industry. It also serves as a useful platform to attract and train future ventilation professionals and mine planning engineers, as well as for mining companies to discover better practices to provide better ventilation planning.