Contents

Chapter 2.....................................................................................................................................................1

Chapter 2
Magneto-inductive (MI) communication
In recent years MI communications has attracted too much researchers towards itself.
MI communication is progressing with an advanced pace in the recent years and is
attracting interest in the field of communication environment. The classic radio, optical
wireless, acoustical and molecular communications are now dilapidated due to too
much loss in path, and size in their antenna. In addition to the size and path loss they
also have a different medium of communication but MI communication is a
communication where the path stress is upon the soil instead of air [1]. We can see the
examples which are an underwater communication [2,3], underground communication
[4,5], process engineering such as communication in chemical reaction tanks, and
medical applications [6]. In the surrounding environment MI communication is
specialized with his slow propagation delay and less susceptibility [7]. MI technique is
usually applied in the underground communication [8]. In addition to this issues like
multipath propagation and fating are also eliminated due to the strength of Magneto
Inductive communication. MI communication are least disturbed by the soil medium. To
address the issues of path, wireless underground sensor networks (WUSNs) are
suggested [9]. Furthermore special power managing techniques are also proposed [10].
The two usually adopted techniques in wireless underground communication are : 1)
Magnetic induction and 2) Radio wave propagation [11]. However, there are
restrictions in near-field MI communication as the normal proposed transmitter at
receiver side are coils which can be used as antennas. A link is established between the
receiver and the transmitter through Inductive coupling. A modulated electrical current
is induced in the receiver coil by the transmitter coil. The received signals are taken as
voltage through clamps of the receiver. When the transmitter and the receiver operate
in a properly synchronized resonant circuit the signals are made to reach to a
reasonable distance. This principle generates a significant gain for signal frequencies
around the resonant frequency, but reduces the possible bandwidth depending on the
quality factor of the resonant circuit. As the range of communication can be reduced

1
through radius of the receiver and the transmitter coils.

Conventional coil to coil topology

MI waveguide M denote self-inductivity of the coil, parasitic resistance, capacitance of

the capacitor, and mutual inductance between two neighboring coils, respectively. Also,
U0, In, and RL represent input voltage, current flow in circuit, and the load impedance,
respectively.

Designing of MI communication
The Magneto Inductive Channel the MI channel fundamentally includes the MI
transmitter, the magnetic channel in conductive media, and the MI receiver. These are
shown in the block diagram in Figure 3 and discussed individually below.

Figure 3 Model of a magneto-inductive

communication system.
The magnetic induce transmitter

2
An inductive loop is the most practical and efficient way to generate a magnetic field
[12]. The magnetic field from the loop antenna falls into the following three regions: the
near field region, in which the field is described by quasi-static equations and there is no
significant radiation as the electric and magnetic fields are in phase quadrature; the far
field, which represents the region where the electric and magnetic fields are in phase
and where the magnetic field peels off as a propagating electro-magnetic wave; and the
transition region, which is located between the near and far field regions [12].

Table 1 showing the boundary conditions of the

near field, transition zone, and far field.

Near–field
Transition Far-field
propertie approximati region approximati
s on approximation on

𝑇≪1 𝑇2≪1 𝑇≫1

skin
depth

𝑘0𝑟 ≪ 1 (𝑘0𝑟) 2 ≪ 1 𝑘0𝑟 ≫ 1

wave
number

measures (wavenumber |𝒌𝟎 |and skin depth 𝜹), where is the 𝑻 the ratio of distance
As we can see from Table 1 boundary conditions of the three regions using two common

r 2 πf
to skin depth, given as T = and k 0= . We are primarily interested in the near field,
δ c
for which
𝐫 < 𝛅 and

r
T = <1
δ
(3.1)
3
where r is the operating distance and T is skin depth numbers.

The magnetic near-field decays with the inverse cube of the distance. According to the
Biot
1
– Savart Law, the magnetic field from a small element is proportional to 3
r

(3.2)

Where 𝐵 is the flux density and 𝐼 is the current.

Figure 4 Illustration of a loop antenna at the

transmitter side.

proportional to the magnetic moment and decreases with the third power of 𝑟, given by
The magnetic field strength for induction at a distance r from the loop antenna is

md
H= 3 (3.3)
4π r

4
Where 𝑚𝑑 is the magnetic moment for a circular loop antenna given by
m
d=
dt
√ σ
M √ ρ=∅ t √ ρ (3.4)

𝑝 is the dissipated power, and 𝜙𝑡 is the antenna merit factor, given by

4 ρ

dt σ
∅ t= √M (3.5)
4 ρ

In the above, 𝜙𝑡 depends on the mass 𝑀of the coil, the diameter 𝑑𝑡, the electrical
properties of the wire material, which are the conductivity 𝜎, and the material density
𝜌. These parameters are collected in the antenna merit factor 𝜙𝑡, which has
dimensionsm2 /√ Ω. The magnetic moment also depends on the dissipated power 𝑝, but
does not depend on the number of turns [13].
For example, consider a portable induction loop antenna, where the diameter is 1m and
mass is 0.6 Kg. If we take into account that the loop is made from copper

√ σ
ρ
=8 m/kg √ Ω , the magnetic moment is 50 Am2 with a power dissipation of 10 w.

The 𝐻-field is directly proportional to the loop current. Hence, since the power loss in
the antenna (which is due to ohmic resistance) is also directly proportional to the loop
current, there is no fundamental preference of frequency [12].

MI channel characteristic (taken from the paper

Magnetic Induction
Communications for Wireless Underground Sensor Networks ) need to write
formulas from the topic

A coil of wire is used to complete the transmission and reception in In MI

communications, as also portraid in the 1 st part of the figure 1. Whereas the radii of the
transmission and receiver coil portrays the distance between transmitter and the
receiver.
if the signal in the transmitter coil is a sinusoidal current, it means that is where the
angle frequency of transmitting signal exists.

5
 Fig: MI communication model channeling
And that is also the frequency of the system that is operating. The communication can
be accomplished by inducing another sinusoidal current at the receiver end. Mutual
induction represent the interaction between the two coupled coils. In second part of the
figure it is shown that the MI transmitter and receiver are portrayed as Primary and
secondary coils of the transformer. Where as the mutual induction of the transmitter
coil and receiver coil; is the voltage of the transmitter’s battery; and are the self-
inductions; and are the resistances of the coil; is the load impedance of the receiver. We
use its equivalent circuit to analyze the transformer, as shown in the third row in Fig. 1,
where

6
where

and are the self impedances of the transmitter coil and the receiver coil, respectively; is
the influence of the receiver on the transmitter while is the influence of the transmitter
on the receiver; is the induced voltage on the receiver coil.
In the equivalent circuit, the transmitting power is equal to the power consumed in the
primary loop. The receiving power is equal to the power consumed in the load
impedance . Both received power and transmitting power are functions of the
transmission range τ

According to the transmission line theory, the reflections take place unless the line is
terminated by its matched impedance. In the equivalent circuit described in Fig. 1, to
maximize the received power, the load impedance is designed to be equal to the
complex conjugate of the output impedance of the secondary loop, i.e.,

The following task is to find the analytical expression for the resistance, self and mutual
induction of the transmitter and receiver coils. The resistance is determined by number
of turns in a coil, its size and the material from which it is composed.

7
where, and are the number of turns of the transmitter coil and receiving coil,
respectively; is the resistance of a unit length of the loop. According to American Wire
Gauge (AWG) standard, can be a value from to 3 with different wire diameter [17].
As the coil is shaped as a magnetic dipole, induction both mutual and self can be
extracted by magnetic capability of the magnetic dipole, which has been brought
forward in polar coordinate system by [18]

Where μ is the permeability of the transmission medium; is the wavelength of the

signal. By using Stokes’ theorem [18], the mutual induction of the two coils can be
calculated

Similar derivation can be used for self-induction as well.

Consequently, by replacing (1), (3), (4), (6) and (7) by (2), a reasonable calculation can be
made regarding power of the transmitter and the receiver. It should also be kept in
mind that the medium of communication that is soil is actually composed of various
elements or combination of elements like water, soil, and rocks etc, so to get the exact
calculations the exact known permeability should be analyzed and their differences
should be accounted for. According to [19], the underground medium can be grouped
into four main types which includes air, water, organic materials ( that is composed of
the matters extracted from animals and plants directly) and inorganic materials (that is
composed of nonliving materials like sand, silt and clay etc.) . The relative permeability’s

8
of the plants, animals, air and water are very close to 1. If the sand, silt, and clay do not
consist of magnetite, their permeability’s are also close to 1. An example is that the
average value for sedimentary rocks is given in [19] as 1.0009. As magnetite is rare in
the usual nature of the soil so we can suppose that permeability of the underground
transmission medium that is soil can be taken as a constant based on the
aforementioned discussion regarding permeability.

The magneto inductive receiver

A receiver for magneto -inductive communications basically consists of a secondary loop
antenna that is coupled with the first loop antenna [13].

Illustration of the second loop at

the receiver.

The induced voltage in a receiver coil via Faraday's law due to the AC magnetic flux
density produced by a magnetic dipole source as a function of frequency, distance and
material parameters, is given by

9
where 𝐻 is the magnetic field component at the receive loop and 𝜙𝑟 is the receiver

𝜇 = 𝜇𝑒𝑓𝑓𝜇0, where 𝜇0 is the magnetic permeability of free space ≈ 4𝜋 × 10−7 Hm-1 ,

antenna loop merit factor. The induced voltage also depends on magnetic permeability

and 𝜇𝑟 = 1 because most of the materials are not ferromagnetic.

d
In a good conductor with ( ≫ 1), and if the communication range is within the near

field, (𝑇 ≪ 1), the optimal frequency for a given distance r is given by

ωϵ

by substituting (3.12) in (3.11) to derive the induced voltage in a coaxial receiver loop as

As the frequency goes to zero, the skin depth 𝛿 becomes large and T→ 0 so the induced

Likewise, at a high frequency, 𝛿 becomes small and T → ∞ so e −T → 0. As a result,

voltage tends to zero. This is due to the lack of magnetic induction at frequency 0.

there is no signal because of the greater degree in skin depth attenuation [13].

MI in underground (Survey on Advances in Magnetic Induction-Based

Wireless Underground Sensor Networks)
Wireless Underground Sensor Networks

Communication in an underground medium is not an easy task. Because of the

conductive properties of the medium, the transmission channel suffers from a very high
attenuation [15], [16]. The structural design of a communication system and its
monetary value cannot be ignored. The main characteristics, roles and its issues
regarding development of the WUSNs have been explained in detail in [17]. To be
specific, the usual limitations of the underground sensor networks, e.g., concealment,
reliability, and coverage, have been covered. Furthermore to the limitations of the

10
study, there are probable solutions to the issues of range and connectivity improvement
that are explained in the research [17]. Various methods have been adopted and
applied for shaping WUSNs to obtain the required results [15]. As the past studies
usually are comprised of the transmission going through underwater and underground,
the present study provide a more improved version of the channel models [18]. In
addition to the revised versions of channels in the study and improved connectivity and
ranges the study also provide empirical evidences for the underground to underground
study [19] and [20]. And an empirical study regarding underground to above the ground
transmission have also been explained and covered in the study [22], [23].
In similar paradigm the propagation of the paths in multiple ways in underground
channel has also been explained and confirmed through trials [24], [25]. Cross layer
network has been proposed for network optimization of WUSNs [26]. Secondly the issue
of low energy source in WUSNs has been covered in [27] and [28]. In [27], charging of
the sensor batteries and information transmission are covered by the network . In [28],
extra relay nodes have been adjusted in proper positions, such that the connectivity of
the network is maintained and correspondingly the lifetime is enhanced. Soil provide a
very high diversity degree due to which the signals movement can be altered in a
reasonable way. It can be dealt by using smart antenna technique [29]. It has been
described that the usual applications for WUSNs are focused on agricultural purposes
and transmission of signals in tunnels and mines. As both the channels vary in their type,
and quality regarding its composition. So to deal with such an issue the modeling for
WUSNs in mines and tunnels are studied and explored separately [30] [31]. Moreover,
specific version of data collection founded on a center pivot system has been taken into
consideration in [32] and [33].

Magnetic Communication in Free Space

Magnetic Induction, MI also known as magnetic resonance, MR are adopted in
transmission to an augmented level. The MI transmission has again come into the spot
light of research due to its increased utilization in the modern communication as it is
being used extensively as a Key communicating transmission medium in gadgets like
smartphones, etc. Usual application of MI-based signal transmission lie in the area of
WPT and NFC. It is a known fact now that in the presence of various magnetic devices or
gadgets in close distance can alter the results as compared to the far-area transmission
of signals. And it is normally due to the non linear behavior of the magnetic field when
many other magnetic gadgets are also stationed nearby. That is why the pointification
has not been accurate and hence the properties could not be generalized to a
reasonable extent regarding system modeling. As many a devices are set in close

11
distances, it will have such an effect on the transmission of signals. So the design of the
system network is important to keep it in mind as to refrain from putting too many
devices in too close a proximity with one another because it can alter the outcome to a
great extent. Because of an efficient and effective outcome in the near-field or close
field area WPT has gained too much importance and utilization in the past [30]. Some
basic work has been covered in [6] and [31]–[33]. In this area different effects of the
transmission channel, e.g., frequency-splitting [34], coil misalignment [35], impedance
matching [36], etc., have been thoroughly explored. Now the focus is on wireless
charging of devices and machines like electrical vehicles and mobile phones. Due to
wireless charging the cable based connection will be completely reduced or eliminated
[37], [38].
Regretably, absolute performance the WPT can be achieved for very low distances of
hardly a few centimeters. And for this the coupling amongst the magnetic resonators
need to be strong enough. To enlarge the distance of transmission the normal point to
point WPT has been augmented by using various transmitters, receivers and few extra
relay devices [39] [40], [41], [42]. Moreover many transmitters and receivers have been
regulated into more common MI-based multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)
technique, that are explained and explored in [43]–[46]. In current studies, various
multiple user conditions have been taken into consideration and the beam making
coefficients of a co-existed (e.g., in [45]) or dispersed (e.g., in [44]) transmitter have
been made better regarding various paradigms, e.g. the whole receive power or the
minimal received power between various receiver locations. A particular case of
magnetic MIMO related to multiple transmitters and receivers has been observed in
[47], where a safe WPT has been achieved for the intended user via magnetic beam
forming.
However, many solutions have been suggested that can add to commerciality, among
which WiTricity is the most famous one [48].
NFC is a unique type of radio frequency identification (RFID) [49] for very short
transmission ranges below 4 cm [5], [50]. The usual applications for such schemes are
contactless payment, keycards, and social networking. Here, the short-range
transmission turned out to be an advantage of the MI transceivers, since it reduces the
risk of eavesdropping [51], [52] and the interference to corresponding communication
links. The channel model and the adjacent near-field effects have been taken into
consideration in many works, e.g., [49] and [53]. Meanwhile, an NFC forum has been
created, where the current advances of the NFC and its optimization are presented [54].
The achievable data rate of an NFC point-to-point link is only 424 Kb/s according to the

12
existing standards ISO/IEC 18092/21481, which are based on the passive RFID standard
ISO/IEC 14443. This data rate is mostly dictated by the choice of passive circuit elements
and few practical assumptions [49]. In order to overcome this limitation, a simple NFC
link has been enhanced using an MIMO technique [55]–[57] and additional cooperative
relay devices [58], [59]. Furthermore, NFC can qualify as a better contestent for the
approaching Internet of Things (IoT) due to the limited interference created to the
adjacent transceivers [60], [61].
Furthermore a blend of NFS and WPT are too much promising in case of internet of
things (IoT) when it comes to the simultaneous usage of wireless information and power
transmission [62]. In SWIPT, a particular signal is utilized for the transfer of information
and power, which normally is more efficient than the commonly used sequential
transmission. A survey in [63] has provided even more insight into the subject.

Magnetic Communication in Liquids

Marine forces and marine scientist are applying underwater communication in their jobs
for a long time are putting in hard efforts to bring in reforms in its utility. As they are
actively operating in the sea water and sea water has a very high electric conductivity
that is up to 4 S/m [64] because of ions of salts and presence of free electron which
make it inevitable for them to design all their applications in accordance to the
environment that they are into. Classical ways of transmission of data has been acoustic
wave signals because EM waves are effective in short distances and have a little or low
frequency of signals that can range only to a few Hertz. That is why acoustic waves are
generated and applied due to its effectiveness in long ranges that can reach to several
kilometers. The key drawbacks of the scheme is a very harsh time-varying and
frequency-selective transmission channel. The disadvantage is addressed by proposing
MI based signal transmission in [65] and [66]. As it is absolutely known that MI has a
lower transmission range as compared to the acoustic waves but the stability in MI is
what make us go for suggesting MI instead of acoustic waves.
To bring about improvement in the diversity and direction of the signal transmission,
the use of three directional coil are suggested. In addition to the three directional coil
[68], has suggest the use of multifrequency band. It will help in an additional degree of
freedom which can be exploited for the deployment of resource, hence it will augment
the gainable data as a whole. Moreover in [69] an operational implementation of a
modem that is magneto inductive has also been described.
Moreover in oil industry the oil reservoirs and pipeline also have a special utilization of
the MI communication, in which MI-WSNs are deployed to find any leakage in the

13
pipeline [70], [71]. For this particular purpose in [72] the channel and energy utilization
designs have been formed. Regrettably the use of this technology has some limitation
that is that only small sized coils can be used in underwater and underground sensors.
To deal with such an issue it is proposed in [73] that a cross layerd energy efficient
solution be applied to it.
Generally due to complex deployement and loss of path in liquid is observed due to the
MI based communication. However, the corresponding transmission channels are very
similar to the transmission channels in MIWUSNs, such that the advances in one area
can be easily adopted in the other one. Thus, the concurrent ways suggested for MI-
WUSNs may be deployed for the formation of more gruesome communication in the
liquid medium.

Experiment scheme (from soil conductivity)

“Our experiments were conducted in Loess Plateau, located in the Shanxi Province of
China. Loess Plateau was selected as our test site because its soil is relatively
homogeneous. Our experimental scheme is described in this section.
Our experimental setup is displayed by several photos in Fig. 1. A transmitting coil and a
receiving coil are placed 4 meters underneath the ground surface. In Fig. 1, locations of
the transmitting coil and receiving coil are denoted by two red flags, respectively. Two
types of coils are fabricated and used in our experiments, as shown in Fig. 2. They are
both made of copper wire with radius 0.5 mm. The larger square coil in Fig. 2 has side
length 80 cm, and the smaller square coil has side length 12 cm. Figure 3 illustrates the
geometrical configuration of our experimental setup. The ground surface is parallel to
the x-y plane. The transmitting coil is located at the spatial origin. The transmitting coil’s
aperture resides in the y-z plane; in other words, the direction normal to the
transmitting coil’s aperture is always x direction. Following the convention of cylindrical
coordinate systems, the direction from the spatial origin to the receiving coil’s location
is ˆρ . The angle between ˆρ and the direction normal to the receiving coil’s aperture is
defined as r θ . Block diagram of our experimental system is depicted in Fig. 4. A
sinusoidal signal at frequency f = 5 KHz is generated by a laptop computer, converted to
the analog format by an 8-bit digital-to-analog (D/A) converter (with model DAC0832),
14
amplified by a power amplifier (with model LM3886) to 12-V peak-to-peak voltage, and
finally delivered to the transmitting coil. After the signal is coupled to the receiving coil,
it passes an impedance matching circuit, gets amplified by an amplifier circuit based on
OP-AMP NE5532, then is converted to the digital format by a 16-bit analog-to-digital
(A/D) converter (with model AD7606), and finally collected by a laptop computer.
Soil conductivity is a vital parameter in this study. Associated with each of our
experiments, soil conductivity is measured at multiple locations between the
transmitting coil and receiving coil, and the average value is used to model our
experiments. HI993310 Portable Soil Activity Conductivity Meter & Probe Kit
manufactured by Hanna Instruments is employed for our conductivity measurements.”

15
 Two types of coils used in experiments

Geometrical configuration of the experiments

Implementation and Experimental Analysis (taken from paper Practical

Design and Implementation of
Metamaterial-Enhanced Magnetic Induction
Communication)

In this section, we implement the M2I antenna using a 3D printed spherical frame and
printed coils on circuit boards. The magnetic field enhancement is validated and the
wireless channel between M2I transceivers are measured in different environments.

16
Antenna Implementation for M2I Communication

3D Printed Spherical Frame: “A spherical frame is fabricated by using 3D printing

technique to support the coil-antenna array. 3D printing is an emerging disruptive
technology that can directly fabricate 3D object from digital model without specific
tooling and fixturing. Therefore it is more flexible and efficient than traditional molding
and machining based manufacturing processes. Fused Deposition Molding (FDM) is one
of most popular 3D printing technology which is advantageous in terms of material
property, cost and accessibility compared with other technologies. In this research, FDM
based desktop printer (MakerBot Replicator 2X) has been employed to fabricate the
spherical shape support structure for the coil-antenna array. This process begins with a
3D digital model representing the geometry and topology of the final product, which is
modeled in a commercial Computer- Aided Design (CAD) software suite (Creo Pro, PTC)
as shown in Fig. 18(a). Dedicated model pre-processing software (Makerware) slices the
digital model into a series of 2D layers with several micro-meter thicknesses, and then
rasterizes the layers by tool path planning (Fig. 18(b)). The path data is then transmitted
to the 3D printer and the system operates in X, Y and Z axes, drawing the model one
layer at a time. The material is fed into the printer in the form of filament, and then
heated up to the material melting point and extruded through nozzle with small orifice.
The spherical frame is fabricated in a layer by layer basis.”

17
Prototype 3d printed spare and coil antennas a)

3d digital model b) sliced model c) implementation

Metamaterial Units and Coil-antenna Array:

As discussed in the previous sections, the spherical array of small coils is the effective
component to realize the metamaterial layer for M2I antenna. “In our implementation,
we place the small coils on the 3D printed frame, which forms the spherical coil-array.
The spherical frame and the small coils have exactly the same size as the simulation
model in previous section. The small coils are printed on circuit boards with thickness
1.57 mm. The thickness of the copper is 1 oz. The edge of the square PCB is 18 mm long.
The outer edge of the coil is 16 mm and the width of the trace is 2 mm. All the coils are
placed at the same position as the simulation model. The final product of the 3D printed
spherical frame with metamaterial units (i.e., the small coils) is shown in Fig. 18(c ).”

Wireless coupling encasement

18
“As discussed in Section IV-A, the radiated magnetic field by a magnetic dipole can be
enhanced by the metamaterial shell. To validate this conclusion, we resort to the S 21
parameter [67] since it is proportional to the ratio of transmitted voltage to induced
voltage; as indicated in (6), the voltage is proportional to magnetic field and thus the S
21 is a good indicator to show the enhancement of wireless coupling. Analogous to the
method used in [18], [68] to evaluate metamaterial’s performance, we use a pair of
nonresonant magnetic loop antennas with radius 0.045 m and measure the S 21
parameter with metamaterial sphere (Sw21) and without metamaterial sphere (S wo
21 ). We define the S 21 gain as S w 21 􀀀 S wo 21 where the S 21 parameters are in dB
scale. The S 21 parameter is measured in Agilent 8753ERF network analyzer. We use
2700 pF capacitors to tune the small coils on the sphere.As shown in Fig. 19, a
resonance is achieved at 18 MHz and the gain is around 8 dB. The results show that both
the resonant peak at 18 MHz and the null right after it are exactly the same as our
analyses and prediction. It is worth noting that the implementation of M2I requires the
small coils on the shell to be highly identical, i.e., the capacitors should have low
tolerance. The capacitors we use have 1% tolerance. If the tolerance is higher, the small
coils on the sphere have slightly different resonance frequency and thus the negative
permeability on the sphere are inhomogeneous, or even worse some of the coils may
demonstrate positive effective parameter. Similarly, the coils are supposed to be
identical, otherwise their self-inductance and resistance are different, which can also
create inhomogeneity on the sphere.”

“As shown in Fig. 19, a resonance is achieved at 18 MHz and the gain is around 8 dB. The
results show that both the resonant peak at 18 MHz and the null right after it are exactly
the same as our analyses and prediction. It is worth that the implementation of M2I
requires the small bcoils on the shell to be highly identical, i.e., the capacitors should
have low tolerance. The capacitors we use have 1% tolerance. If the tolerance is higher,
the small coils on the sphere have slightly different resonance frequency and thus the
negative permeability on the sphere are inhomogeneous, or even worse some of the
coils may demonstrate positive effective parameter. Similarly, the coils are supposed to
be identical, otherwise their self-inductance and resistance are different, which can also
create inhomogeneity on the sphere.”

Wireless channel Measurement

19
To measure the path loss the of wireless channel between two M2I transceivers, we use
USRP software-defined radio kits as the signal transmitting and receiving devices. The
M2I antennas are connected to the USRP boards. The mother board we utilized is the
USRP N210, which is based on a Xilinx Spartan-3A DSP 3400 FPGA. It has a 100 MS/s
dual ADC and a 400 MS/s dual DAC, and it is connected to computer via a gigabit
Ethernet. The daughter boards are LFTX/LFRX which can support two independent
antennas through connectors TxA/RxA and TxB/RxB. This daughter board can generate
and receive wireless signals from 0 MHz to 30 MHz which is within our interest
frequency band, i.e., 18 MHz. Based on these hardware equipment’s, the signal is
generated and analyzed in GNU software’s installed on a computer. The signal is
generated by a signal source block with frequency 100 kHz and the transmitting
frequency is set as 18 MHz. At the receiving side, we use a fast Fourier transformation
(FFT) block to convert the received time domain signal into frequency domain signal.
Note that, the received power here is in dB scale rather than dBm since it is a relative
value which is determined by the device. The exact power value in dBm needs a
comprehensive analysis on the power loss and gain of each component that the signal
goes through. In the following, we provide the same transmitting power and measure
the received power to show the difference between the case using M2I antennas and
the case using original MI antennas. Since the metamaterial shell is symmetrical, the
shell have the same influence on the inner loop antenna with arbitrary orientation. In
the experiments, the transmitting and receiving antennas are placed coplanarly. The
experiments are conducted in two environments for the aforementioned applications,
including indoor environment and underground environment.

Indoor
We first test the path loss in indoor environments and the settings employed is depicted
in Fig. 20(a). By varying the distance between a transmitter and a receiver, we measure
the received power of using metamaterial sphere and without it. As shown in Fig. 21,
with the metamaterial shell, M2I can receive around 10 dB more power than original MI
and the communication range can be extended. Also, as an example, the measured
power at 38 cm (15 in) is shown in Fig. 22 for both M2I and MI. The power spectrum
clearly shows that the baseband signal strength is increased by around 10 dB
(approximately one order of magnitude) by using metamaterial sphere. In another
word, if we use the same transmission power and the same receiver sensitivity, the 10
dB enhancement of M2I can almost double the transmission range of the original MI. In

20
Fig. 21, the analytical path losses predicted by the theoretical model in [16] are also
depicted for comparison, which has a good match with the experiment results.

Underground

To test M2I’s performance in complex environments, a tank with length 255 cm, height
76 cm and width 76 cm is utilized and filled with around 0.98 m3 of sand. The USRP and
M2I antennas are placed in the sand to test its performance in the underground
environment. We measure the received power at 70 cm, 140 cm, and 200 cm away from
the transmitting antenna. As shown in Fig. 23, with the metamaterial shell, the received
power are -50 dB, -55 dB, and -58 dB, while without the shell, the received power are -
60 dB, -63 dB, and -64 dB. Hence, the gain is also significant in such environment. It
should be noted that the soil tank actually creates a confined space with six soil air
boundaries, which is much more complicated than the homogeneous environment used
in the theoretical model in [16]. As a result, the theoretical curves are not compared
here.

21
Magnetic Induction-Based Underground Communication for MISE-PIPE (taken
from MISE-PIPE: Magnetic induction-based wireless sensor
networks for underground pipeline monitoring)

“According to the system architecture and operational framework described in Section

3, the functionality of the MISE-PIPE highly depends on two types of wireless
communication needs: the communication between soil property sensors and the
processing hubs, and the communication between the processing hubs and the remote
administration center. The communication between the processing hubs and the
remote administration center can be established through existing wireless
communication techniques, including the satellite communication, the cellular
networks, the ad-hoc networks, and mesh networks. However, a reliable and efficient
wireless underground communication technique has yet to be developed to realize the
wireless communication between soil property sensors and processing hubs.”
“Traditional signal propagation techniques using electromagnetic (EM) waves encounter
two major problems in soil medium: (1) high levels of attenuation due to absorption by
soil, rock, and water in the underground; and (2) dynamic channel conditions depending
on numerous soil properties such as water content, soil makeup (sand, silt, or clay) and
density [4,20,27–29,39]. To guarantee the network connectivity, high density of
underground sensors is required, which may induce high deployment and maintenance
cost [35].”

22
“The magnetic induction (MI)-based communication is a promising signal propagation
technique in soil medium, since the dense soil medium does not cause higher
attenuation rate of magnetic fields than the rate in the air and the MI channel
conditions do not dramatically vary as the soil properties change [32,33]. The MI
communication is accomplished with the use of a coil of wire, as shown in Fig. 2. Those
coils can be winded on the pipelines in MISE-PIPE. The signal in the transmitter coil is
modulated by a sinusoidal current, which produces a time-varying magnetic field in the
near field of the transmitter. The time-varying magnetic field induces another sinusoidal
current in the receiver, which accomplishes the communication.”

MI Waveguide
Despite the potential advantages of MI communication, the path loss of MI transceivers
are still high since the magnetic field strength falls off much faster than the EM waves
(1/r 3 vs. 1/r). Motivated by this fact, we developed the MI waveguide technique in
[32,33] to reduce the path loss and extend the transmission range for the MI
communication in underground environments. In particular, relay points between the
transmitter and the receiver are employed. Different from the relay points using the EM
wave technique, the MI relay point is just a simple coil without any energy source or
processing device. The sinusoidal current in the transmitter coil induces a sinusoidal
current in the first relay point. This sinusoidal current in the relay coil then induces
another sinusoidal current in the second relay point, and so on and so forth. Those relay
coils form an MI waveguide in underground environments, which acts as a waveguide
that guides the so-called MI waves, as shown in Fig. 3. It should be noted that if the
pipeline is made of metal, no (or very few) relay coils are needed since the metal
pipeline itself acts as the magnetic core of the MI waveguide. The relay coils are needed
only if the pipeline is made of non-metal materials, such as PVC pipelines. It is only
required to deploy one relay coil that is around 5 m [32–34] apart from each other. The
underground pipeline is the perfect core to wind those coils. The cost of the deployment
of the coils is small if they are mounted on the pipeline during deployment.

23
The MI waveguide has four advantages in underground communications for MISE-PIPE:
Based on our preliminary analysis in [32,33], by using the MI waveguides, the required
number of underground sensors is possible to be significantly reduced. Specifically, by
appropriately designing the waveguide parameters, the total path loss can be greatly
reduced. The maximum communication range between two transceivers can achieve
more than 100 m.
Unlike the sensor devices, the relay coils do not require additional maintenance once
they are buried. Even if some of the coils are damaged in extreme circumstances, the
remaining coils still provide robust network operation. Hence the MI waveguide is
robust and easy to deploy and maintain.
The relay coils do not consume energy and the unit cost is very small. Therefore, the MI
waveguide is ideal for the underground pipeline monitoring system.
The system lifetime can be greatly prolonged, since it is possible to use the MI
waveguide to recharge the underground sensors using the inductive charging technique
[17].

Deployment of MI waveguide in MISE-PIPE

“Although the MI waveguide technique is favorable in underground communications for
MISE-PIPE, the deployment strategy of the relay coils to connect the soil property
sensors along the pipelines needs to be developed due to the following reason. On the
one hand, large number of relay coils are required to guarantee the network
connectivity and robustness. On the other hand, the intensive deployment of the coils
along pipelines cost a un-negligible amount of labor. Therefore the optimal number of
relay coils needs to be found out. In this subsection, the relay coil deployment strategy
for the one-dimensional (1D) network along the underground pipelines in MISE-PIPE is
provided according to our previous analysis [34]. The optimal number of relay coils
between two soil property sensors is analyzed according to the required bandwidth and
the distance between two sensors.”

24
 MI waveguide structure in MICE-PIPE
The goal of the optimal deployment of the MI waveguide in MISE-PIPE is to use as few
relay coils as possible to connect the two adjacent soil property sensors. The optimal
number of relay coils for each link is determined by the length of the link and the
required bandwidth. Assuming that the length of a link is d. The required bandwidth is
B. An MI waveguide with n 1 relay coils is deployed along the link to connect the two
sensors. Therefore the interval r between two adjacent relay coil is r = d/n. Assuming
that the angle frequency of the transmitting signal is x, and the center frequency of the
signal is x0. According to [32,33], the path loss of the MI waveguide can be expressed as,

where M is the mutual induction between the adjacent coils; Z is the self impedance of
one relay coil; and f Z xM ; n is the n order polynomial of Z xM. The self impedance of a
coil Z is designed to be resonant at the center frequency x0. When x = x0, Z becomes
pure resistance R, which is the coil wire resistance. The polynomial f(x,n) can be
developed as

Then, the mutual induction M can be deduced by the magnetic potential of the
magnetic dipole:

25
where l is the permeability of the pipeline; N is the number of turns of the wire on the
coils; and a is the coil radius. According to (1), the path loss increases monotonically
when the signal frequency deviates from the central frequency x0. Therefore, if the
signal with frequency x = x0 + 0.5B is correctly received, a communication channel with
bandwidth of B is established between the two sensors. Assuming that transmission
power is Pt and the minimum power for correct demodulation a signal is Pth. Using the
path loss given in (1), the received power is derived. Then the optimal number of relay
coils for this link is:

According to (4), the optimal number of relay coils is a function of the link length and
the required bandwidth. Since the required bandwidth can be viewed as a constant, it is
the link length that determines the optimal number of relay coil.
By using the parameters of the MI waveguide developed in [32,33], we can numerically
analyze the optimal number of relay coils with different link length. In the following
analysis, Pt = 4 dBm (2.5 mW) and Pth = 80 dBm. Due to the resonant characteristics of
the MI waveguide, the bandwidth of the system is much smaller than the terrestrial
wireless networks. However, the small bandwidth is acceptable for MISE-PIPE since the
reporting the soil property measurements do not require very high data rate [3].
Therefore, the bandwidth of the MI waveguide is set to be 1 KHz. The operating
frequency is 10 MHz. The relay coils have the same radius of 0.15 m and the number of
turns is 20. The coil is made of copper wire with a 1.45 mm diameter. The cost and
weight of coils made of this kind of wire is neglectable. The wire resistance of unit
length is 0.01 X/m. This relatively high wire resistance also effectively mitigates the in-
band signal fluctuation. The permeability of the underground soil medium is a constant
and is similar to the permeability of the air, since most soil in the nature does not
contain magnetite. Therefore, l = 4p 107 H/m. The soil moisture and the soil
composition do not affect the MI communication according to the analysis in [32,33].
In Fig. 4, the received power of the 10 MHz + 0.5 KHz signal using MI waveguides with
different numbers of relay coils is shown as a function of the link length d. The axial
communication range of a MI waveguide with a certain number of relay coils is shown
as the intersection point of the received power and the 80 dBm threshold. Fig. 4 shows
that the axial communication range increases as the number of relay coils increases.
However, the increment of the communication range caused by additional relay coils
decreases as the number of relay coils increases. For example, the axial communication
range of a MI transceiver pair can be increased by 36 m by adding the first 10 relay coils

26
but can be only increased by 27 m by adding another 10 relay coils. This phenomenon is
due to the fact that the coils relay the signal in a passive way and there is no extra
power added at each relay coil. According to (4), the optimal number of relay coils for
the link with a certain length can be read from Fig. 4 by finding out the curve with the
minimum number of relay coils that has the axial communication range larger than the
link length.

It should be noted that the numerical results shown in Fig. 4 is based on the assumption
that the pipeline is made of non-metal material. If the metal pipelines (e.g. cast iron
pipelines) are used, the required number of relay coils can be greatly reduced since the
metal pipeline acts as a perfect core of the magnetic induction system. Moreover, as the
radius of the pipelines increases, the required number of relay coils also dramatically
decreases since the radius of the relay coils also increases.

Challenges of MI communication
Challenges in open issues
As antennas that were not uni directional but multi directional were deployed and it
was found that they proved to be more reliable in underwater MI transmission, but still

27
there are many more issues that circulate around in an environment that varies to a
great extent in seas. The foremost is the derviation of accurate channel model for those
multi-directional MI antennas when it is known that the loss in underwater medium
may cause an extra resistance to all the MI coils. Moreover the transmission reliability is
also affected and actually degraded by the addition of multiple coils to enhance the
magnetic field. It is usually done to enhance the range cover but it may cause a
reasonable coupling which in case would limit the reliability of the transmission. When
coupling in the intenna are considered the channel model gets to be more complex as
an outcome. In addition to the above described issues some more issues also require to
be taken into consideration.

Is it mandatory to keep all the functioning coils operational all the time in a multi
directional MI transmitter? Let suppose the answer is Not, then how many of the coils
are required to be operational or active to keep the performance reliable and
satisfactory in order to conserve as much an energy as possible?
In case of multi-directional MI receiver, what is the exact proportionate method for the
last receiving wave of signal? For instance, in a TD receiver, is it requires to accumulate
all the three receiving signals or is it enough to rely on a single one of them? The
selection of method should affect the hardware difficulty of the device significantly.

It is to be taken into account that the present application still has path losses to be
considered. The path losses can be eliminated or atleast minimized by increasing the
number of coils or minimize the resistance of multiple coils, but it will put up another
issue and that is the cost and size of the antenna [14]. So it is required to investigate and
explore techniques with comparatively low cost and with more accuracy.

28
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