Impact of propagation medium on link quality for underwater and underground sensors

摘要

With the rapid development of wireless networks new application domains are continuously proposed. One of these applications includes an underwater and underground sensor which relies on the properties of diminished RF performance to send the gathered information to a base station. Although many researchers deal with the theoretical background of the channel and propagation models, very few experimental studies regarding the link quality were conducted. Due to the fact that new and more powerful sensor nodes are continuously being developed, the question that arises is how these new and more powerful classes of wireless sensors can handle the harsh environment in underwater and underground networks. Therefore, in this paper the authors analyze the impact of soil, water, moisture and other parameters on the link quality between two sensor nodes in various scenarios. The obtained results present a basis for designing and planning an underground/underwater sensor network.