Gaped Two-Loop Antenna-Based Magnetic Transceiver With an Empirical Model for Wireless Underground Communication

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 9; pp. 34962 - 34974
• Main Authors: Lee, Jaewoo, Lee, Hyun Joon, Kim, Jang-Yeol, Cho, In-Kui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antennas; Circuits; Coils; electromagnetic induction; electronic circuits; Energy conversion efficiency; Feasibility studies; Hardware; Inductance; Integrated circuit modeling; Loop antennas; Magnetic fields; Magnetic flux; Magnetic induction; Magnetosphere; modeling; Systems stability; Transceivers; Two dimensional models; Underground communication; wireless communication; Wireless communications
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3062148

This paper presents a practical low-power, low-frequency magnetic induction (MI) transceiver based on symmetrical gaped two-loop antennas with an empirical circuit model for wireless underground communication. Because of the quasi-two-dimensional loop antennas for the transmitter (Tx) and the receiver (Rx), the tailored hardware platform is not only simple, but can be readily extended to a mutually orthogonal 3-D scheme. Through a mixed model of actual measurement data and theoretical parameters, we developed the two-loop antenna with the space of the antenna radius optimized for energy efficiency. The Tx power almost doubles that of the single Tx one, which provides channel expansion as well as system stability in terms of the Tx current level. Accordingly, the Rx signal is considerably increased by 9.5 dB in contrast with a typical single-Tx single-Rx configuration. Moreover, we used empirical-based modeling for a reliable electrical model. The empirical mutual inductance, which was modeled in a 25 m corridor, resulted in a channel correction factor of 0.86, showing that the signal intensity was reduced by 14% in the underground corridor compared to the free space. A maximum range of 68 m under a SNR of 9.5 dB and a path loss of 100.7 dB on a load of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">50~\Omega </tex-math></inline-formula> at 34.5 dBm were predicted from the model. In addition, this study confirmed the system feasibility by a SNR of 8.7 dB in a practical lossy environment between two floors, where its value was converted into a MI channel at a distance of 70 m in the underground corridor.