Design of Magnetic Induction Based Energy-Efficient WSNs for Nonconventional Media Using Multilayer Transmitter-Enabled Novel Energy Model

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used in nonconventional media such as underground and underwater environment for applications concerning sensing, intrusion detection, monitoring, and exploration. Traditional techniques of communication like electromagnetic are not suitable for nonconventional media, mainly because of high path loss and thus being impractical. In underwater environment, the majority of the research work is based on acoustic communication. However, it faces many challenges like dynamic channel behavior, low data rate, and high propagation delay. Magnetic induction (MI)-based communication is a recently explored technique for nonconventional media applications. This communication method exhibits several promising characteristics such as predictable and constant channel behavior, negligible propagation delay, sufficiently large communication range with high data rate, and stealth underwater operations. In this paper, four possible compensation circuits and multilayer coil structure are suggested for better design of MI transceiver. Herein, the amount of power received by the receiver circuit mainly depends on the structure of the coil used in the transceiver and the type of media through which the signal propagates. Multilayer coil structure is preferred for the proposed design since it performs better than its single-layer counterpart. A novel energy model for MI-based communication link in nonconventional media is proposed. This model describes energy dissipation in the transceiver circuit for MI communication. An analytical model of optimal clustering is also performed with different positions of base station to elaborate the application of the proposed energy model. Performance analysis is also carried out in dry sand, freshwater, and seawater conditions of nonconventional media.