Signal Propagation and Analysis in Wireless Underground Sensor Networks

Abstract

The most challenging issue in the design of wireless sensor networks for the application of localization in the underground environment, mostly for miner’s location, is the sensor nodes’ energy consumption, efficiency and communication. Underground Wireless Sensor Networks are active and promising area of application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), whereby sensor nodes perform sensing duties in the underground environment. Most of the communication techniques used in the underground environment experience a high path loss and hence, hinders the range needed for transmission. However, the available option to increase information transmission is to increase the transmission power which needs large size of apparatus which is also limited in the underground. To solve the mentioned problems, this paper proposed a Magnetic Induction based Pulse Power. Analytical results of the Magnetic Induction based Pulse Power with an ordinary magnetic induction communication technique show an improvement in Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and path loss with variation in distance between nodes and frequency of operation. This paper further formulates a nonlinear program to determine the optimal data (events) extraction in a grid based WUSNs.