Link Budget Maximization for a Mobile-Band Subsurface Wireless Sensor in Challenging Water Utility Environments

Abstract

A subsurface chamber transceiver system and associated propagation channel link budget considerations for an underground wireless sensor system (UWSS) are presented: the application was a sewerage system for a water utility company. The UWSS operates over the GSM850/900, GSM1800/1900, and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) bands in order to operate with the standard public mobile phone system. A novel antenna was developed to minimize path loss from the underground location: a folded loop type, which is small enough to fit conveniently inside a utility manhole access chamber while giving adequate signal strength to link to mobile base stations from such a challenging environment. The electromagnetic performance was simulated and measured in both free space and in a real manhole chamber. An experimental test bed was created to determine the return loss and received signal strength with different transceiver positions below the manhole chamber access cover. Both numerical and experimental results suggested an optimum position of the unit inside the manhole, combining easy access for maintenance with viable received signal strength. This confirmed that the characteristics were adequate for incorporation in a transceiver designed to communicate with mobile base stations from underground. A field trial confirmed the successful operation of the system under severe conditions. Index Terms-GSM, link budget, mobile band antenna, received signal strength, subsurface propagation, UMTS, underground utilities, wireless sensor network (WSN).

Design of mobile band subsurface antenna for drainage infrastructure monitoring

“…It should be noted that most of the previous designs were intended for a single narrow band [9,[18][19][20][21][22][23], although one [25] was designed for two narrow bands and three more [10,17,24] for wideband operation. Only the antennas reported in references [4,17] were capable of covering the GSM bands required for the present application, but they were substantially larger than the design presented here.…”

“…2 illustrates the geometry of the proposed antenna, which is constituted by two inverted-F metal plates, the design being derived from the authors' previous work [13]. Hence, the antenna dimensions were initially selected based on [13] and further optimised to meet the desired characteristics [4]. To avoid dielectric loss in the substrate and maintain high radiation efficiency, this metal-made antenna was adopted instead of a printed microstrip antenna.…”

“…Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have received significant research attention due to their very wide range of applications in business, transportation, government, healthcare and the military. Many aspects of WSN design, including network architectures, protocols, signal processing and hardware have been intensively investigated for communications and sensing in internet of underground things [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. The convergence of the Internet, telecommunications, and novel information technologies with viable techniques for miniaturisation now offers immense opportunities for the development and application of sensor systems to meet these unabated needs.…”

An Acoustic Sensor for Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Screen Condition Monitoring in a Drainage Infrastructure

“…These methods are not designed to work in CSOs. The only sensors which are installed in CSO are ultrasonic water level meters [ 24 , 25 ] and optical fibre-based condition monitoring systems [ 26 ]. The ultrasonic water level sensor monitors the water levels to inform the operator the frequency of spill incidents when water level is high enough to be discharged via the outlet pipe as shown in Figure 1 , while the fibre optical sensor is used to detect the changes of humidity and temperatures.…”

Antennas for Emerging 5G Systems

“…5G will support significantly faster mobile broadband speeds and extensive mobile data usage as well as enabling the full potential of the Internet of Things [3]. From virtual reality and autonomous cars to the industrial Internet and smart cities, 5G will be at the heart of the future of communications.…”