Advances in Sensor Technology for Sustainable Crop Production

Dr Craig Lobsey is a Senior Lecturer in Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is Chair of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) Working Group on Proximal Soil Sensing (WG-PSS). His research extends across many different sensor technologies and applications, with a focus on improving our understanding and optimisation of agricultural systems. He has previously guest edited a special issue of Sensors on ‘Proximal Soil Sensing’. Dr Asim Biswas is a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph, Canada. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada College, the President of Canadian Society of Soil Science, Vice-Chair of the IUSS WG-PSS and is an Associate Editor of eight journals. He is internationally known for his research on data-driven sustainable soil management. Professor Jeffrey Walker received his B.E. (Civil) and B.Surveying degrees in 1995 with Hons 1 and University Medal from the University of Newcastle, Australia, and his Ph.D. in Water Resources Engineering from the same University in 1999. His Ph.D. thesis was among the early pioneering research on estimation of root-zone soil moisture from assimilation of remotely sensed surface soil moisture observations. He then joined NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre to implement his soil moisture work globally. In 2001 he moved to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Melbourne as Lecturer, where he continued his soil moisture work, including development of the only Australian airborne capability for simulating new satellite missions for soil moisture. In 2010 he was appointed as Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University where he is continuing this research. He is contributing to soil moisture satellite missions at NASA, ESA and JAXA, as a Science Team member for the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission and Cal/val Team member for the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Global Change Observation Mission – Water (GCOM-W) respectively. Dr Alain Tabbgh received his PhD degree from ‘Université Pierre et Marie Curie’ in Paris in 1971 and his ‘thèse d’état’ in 1977 for his research work in geophysical prospecting for archaeology. Since 1972 he is teacher-researcher in this university where he was elected professor of applied geophysics in 1988. He has been director of the ‘Centre de Recherches Géophysiques de Garchy’ of the CNRS and director of the UMR7619 ‘Sisyphe’ (UPMC/CNRS/EPHE/ENSMP). Barry Allred is a Research Agricultural Engineer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) - Agricultural Research Service (ARS) - Soil Drainage Research Unit in Columbus, Ohio. He developed the concept and served as principal editor for the first book devoted to the topic of applying near-surface geophysical methods to agriculture (Handbook of Agricultural Geophysics - CRC Press). He has been active in the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society; serving as President, Vice-President Committees, Editor-in-Chief of the FastTIMES news magazine, a virtual symposium lead coordinator, organizing two of the society’s conference workshops, and chairing several SAGEEP technical sessions.