Signal propagation and analysis in wireless underground sensor networks

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. Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSN) is 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 only available option is to increase information transmission power. This requires large sized apparatus which are also limited in the underground environment. To solve the mentioned problems, this paper proposes a Magnetic Induction (MI) based Pulse Power. Analytical results of the MI based Pulse Power with an ordinary magnetic induction communication technique shows an improvement in Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), 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.