System, apparatus, and method for remote soil moisture measurement and control

A system for remote moisture monitoring and control, comprising:

• a) at least one measurement vehicle, further including:
• a vehicle body, wherein the vehicle body is selected from the group consisting of a ground vehicle body and an aviation vehicle body;
• a vehicle control unit, which is attached to the vehicle body;
• and
• at least one transceiver antenna, which is configured to send and receive electromagnetic signals, wherein the electromagnetic signals are reflected back from a ground surface layer of soil in a field;
• and
• b) a moisture control server, which is connected to the measurement vehicle, via a network;
• wherein the vehicle control unit is configured to control transmission of an outbound electromagnetic signal with a predetermined incident wave power, via the transceiver antenna;
• wherein the vehicle control unit is configured to determine a reflected power of an inbound electromagnetic signal, which is received via the transceiver antenna, wherein the inbound electromagnetic signal is a reflection in the soil of the outbound electromagnetic signal;
• wherein the moisture control server is configured to determine a soil moisture of the field by lookup of a calculated dielectric constant in a soil calibration table that correlates dielectric constant with soil moisture;
• wherein the moisture control server is configured to calculate the calculated dielectric constant via a reflection calculation, based on a predetermined dielectric constant of air, the incident wave power, and the reflected power;
• wherein the transceiver antenna is constructed to transmit a set of transmission signals at varying frequency, each respective transmission signal at a different frequency, and to receive, for each respective transmitted signal, a reflected electromagnet signal that indicates soil moisture at a particular soil depth, whereby evaluating the reflected signals from the plurality of transmitted signals enables soil moisture to be profiled as a function of soil depth.