Abstract: Agriculture as an occupation holds a very important role. The plant growth is affected by the climate and fertility of the soil. We can test the fertility of the soil and improve it based upon the needs of the crop to be grown. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are the major macronutrients found in soil. The use of a MEMS-based sensor provides high sensitivity along with compact implementation in optoelectronic devices. A cantilever beam sensor has been modeled in this paper for the detection of NPK nutrients in the soil. The cantilever beam sensor is based on the concept of local heating due to the absorption of light by the targeted nutrient. The cantilever beam is designed using a bi-material setup. The stresses felt in the beam due to thermal expansion of the materials of the cantilever beam cause the beam to bend. This bending of the beam is used to co-relate the concentration of the targeted nutrient in the soil with the bending caused due to thermal expansion.

Keywords: NPK, Soil nutrient, Sensor, MEMS, Cantilever, Simulation, Macronutrient.

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