Pulsed power system for wireless underground sensor networks

Abstract

In wireless underground sensor networks (WUSNs), electronic magnetic waves undergo severe fading due to the underground environment, which is a challenging environment. Magnetic-induction (MI) communication is been used as an optional technique in the communications of WUSNs, which is not so suitable for information transfer in the underground domain due to high path loss, and the need for large antenna size to increase transmission range. There is a high path loss in magnetic induction technique, and as a result, limiting its transmission range. In order to increase the transmission range, an option is to raise the transmitting power level. However, in the underground environment, the power supply level must not be too high because of the limited size of apparatus. This paper proposed a novel method termed Pulse Power Magnetic Induction (PPMI) to solve the problem of high path loss in underground wireless communication so as to increase the transmission range in the environment. Comparative analysis results of the path loss and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with varying distance and operating frequency of our proposed PPMI system in the underground communication to the ordinary MI system showed an improvement in the transmission range of the underground network.