Development of a Testbed for Wireless Underground Sensor Networks

Agnelo R Silva,Mehmet C Vuran

doi:10.1155/2010/620307

Abstract

Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) constitute one of the promising application areas of the recently developed wireless sensor networking techniques. WUSN is a specialized kind of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) that mainly focuses on the use of sensors that communicate through soil. Recent models for the wireless underground communication channel are proposed but few field experiments were realized to verify the accuracy of the models. The realization of field WUSN experiments proved to be extremely complex and time-consuming in comparison with the traditional wireless environment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that proposes guidelines for the development of an outdoor WUSN testbed with the goals of improving the accuracy and reducing of time for WUSN experiments. Although the work mainly aims WUSNs, many of the presented practices can also be applied to generic WSN testbeds.

Highlights

Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) are a natural extension of the wireless sensor network (WSN) phenomenon to the underground environment
Recent models for the wireless underground communication channel are proposed but few field experiments was realized to verify the accuracy of the models [2, 3, 5]
One possible explanation for the lack of a significant number of field experiments for WUSNs is that such experiments proved to be extremely complex and present novel challenges compared to the traditional wireless environment

Summary

Introduction

Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) are a natural extension of the wireless sensor network (WSN) phenomenon to the underground environment. WUSNs have been considered as a potential field that will enable a wide variety of novel applications in the fields of intelligent irrigation, border patrol, assisted navigation, sports field maintenance, intruder detection, and infrastructure monitoring [1]. Despite their potential, very few field experiments [2,3,4] have been realized, which delays the proliferation of WUSN applications. One possible explanation for the lack of a significant number of field experiments for WUSNs is that such experiments proved to be extremely complex and present novel challenges compared to the traditional wireless environment. Constant changes in the outdoor environment, such as the soil moisture, can contribute to the problems related to the repeatability and comparisons between WUSN experiments

Objectives

Results

Conclusion