Radio frequency (RF) signals are a cornerstone of modern technology, enabling wireless communication, data transfer and sensing applications across a wide range of fields and tasks.
A Cornell Tech-led research group is in the early stages of developing a portable, inexpensive device that uses radio frequency signals and machine learning for another important job: measuring lead contamination levels in soil.
The lab of Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, assistant professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech, has developed SoilScanner, which sends radio waves of different frequencies from an RF transmitter, through a soil sample to an RF receiver, which reveals the effect the soil—and how much lead is in it—has on the signal.
Nandakumar is senior author and Yixuan Gao, a doctoral candidate in computer science, is lead author of “Feasibility of Radio Frequency Based Wireless Sensing of Lead Contamination in Soil,” which won a best-paper award at the International Conference on Embedded Wireless Systems and Networks (EWSN ’24), held Dec. 10–13 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Keep reading at msn.com.
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