Smart underground antenna arrays: A soil moisture adaptive beamforming approach

2018 IEEE 4th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT)

Wong

et al. 2018

Self Cite

Abstract-The projected increases in World population and need for food have recently motivated adoption of information technology solutions in crop fields within precision agriculture approaches. Internet of underground things (IOUT), which consists of sensors and communication devices, partly or completely buried underground for real-time soil sensing and monitoring, emerge from this need. This new paradigm facilitates seamless integration of underground sensors, machinery, and irrigation systems with the complex social network of growers, agronomists, crop consultants, and advisors. In this paper, state-of-the-art communication architectures are reviewed, and underlying sensing technology and communication mechanisms for IOUT are presented. Recent advances in the theory and applications of wireless underground communication are also reported. Major challenges in IOUT design and implementation are identified.

Section: Precisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Internet of underground things: Sensing and communications on the field for precision agriculture

Vuran

2018 IEEE 4th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT)

Wong

et al. 2018

Self Cite

“…When interconnected with existing machinery on the field (seeders, irrigation systems, combines), IOUT enables complete autonomy in the field, and paves the way for more efficient food production solutions. At agricultural farm level, IOUT is being used to provide valuable information to farmers.By using software-defined control of individual antenna elements, steering solutions for communications with static and mobile aboveground devices in digital agriculture can be implemented [17,18]. This kind of implementation of underground (UG) beamforming is challenging for many reasons.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, less energy is required in comparison to traditional mechanical phase shifters. In the third design, the multi-dimensional arrays, structured in rectangular, planar, and circular arrangements to have simultaneous beams in multiple planes, are used.UG transmit beamforming using phased-array antennas at the transmitter [18] has been used in the UG communications to maximize the lateral wave [19] by transmitting energy at a particular angle. By using this approach, the energy waste by sending signals in isotropic direction is reduced by forming the narrow-width beam and steering it accordingly.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By using software-defined control of individual antenna elements, steering solutions for communications with static and mobile aboveground devices in digital agriculture can be implemented [17,18]. This kind of implementation of underground (UG) beamforming is challenging for many reasons.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…UG transmit beamforming using phased-array antennas at the transmitter [18] has been used in the UG communications to maximize the lateral wave [19] by transmitting energy at a particular angle. By using this approach, the energy waste by sending signals in isotropic direction is reduced by forming the narrow-width beam and steering it accordingly.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Subsurface MIMO: A Beamforming Design in Internet of Underground Things for Digital Agriculture Applications

2019

JSAN

Self Cite

In underground (UG) multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), transmit beamforming is used to focus energy in the desired direction. There are three different paths in the underground soil medium through which the waves propagate to reach the receiver. When the UG receiver receives a desired data stream only from the desired path, then the UG MIMO channel becomes a three-path (lateral, direct, and reflected) interference channel. Accordingly, the capacity region of the UG MIMO three-path interference channel, and the degrees of freedom (multiplexing gain of this MIMO channel) requires careful modeling. Therefore, expressions are required for the degrees of freedom of the UG MIMO interference channel. The underground receiver needs to perfectly cancel the interference from the three different components of the EM waves propagating in the soil medium. This concept is based upon reducing the interference of the undesired components to a minimum level at the UG receiver using the receive beamforming. In this paper, underground environment-aware MIMO using transmit and receive beamforming has been developed. The optimal transmit and receive beamforming, combining vectors under minimal intercomponent interference constraints, are derived. It is shown that UG MIMO performs best when all three components of the wireless UG channel are leveraged for beamforming. The environment-aware UG MIMO technique leads to three-fold performance improvements and paves the way for design and development of next-generation sensor-guided irrigation systems in the field of digital agriculture. Based on the analysis of underground radio-wave propagation in subsurface radio channels, a phased-array antenna design is presented that uses water content information and beam-steering mechanisms to improve efficiency and communication range of wireless underground communications. It is shown that the subsurface beamforming using phased-array antennas improves wireless underground communications by using the array element optimization and soil-air interface refraction adjustment schemes. This design is useful for subsurface communication system where sophisticated sensors and software systems are used as data collection tools that measure, record, and manage spatial and temporal data in the field of digital agriculture. systems to sense, analyze, detect, and manage the soil and farm-specific spatial and temporal patterns in the field for sustainability, profitability, and to protect the environment.The Internet of Underground Things (IOUT) have many applications in precision agriculture [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Border monitoring is another important application area of IOUT, where these networks are being used to enforce borders and stop infiltration [13,14]. Monitoring applications of IOUT include landslide monitoring and pipeline monitoring [5,15,16]. IOUT provides seamless access to information collected from agricultural fields through the Internet. IOUT includes in situ soil-sensing capabilities (e.g., soil moisture, temperat...

Underground Environment Aware MIMO Design Using Transmit and Receive Beamforming in Internet of Underground Things

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

2019

Self Cite

In underground (UG) multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), the transmit beamforming is used to focus energy in the desired direction. There are three different paths in the underground soil medium through which the waves propagates to reach at the receiver. When the UG receiver receives a desired data stream only from the desired path, then the UG MIMO channel becomes three path (lateral, direct, and reflected) interference channel. Accordingly, the capacity region of the UG MIMO three path interference channel and degrees of freedom (multiplexing gain of this MIMO channel requires careful modeling). Therefore, expressions are required derived the degrees of freedom of the UG MIMO interference channel. The underground receiver needs to perfectly cancel the interference from the three different components of the EM-waves propagating in the soil medium. This concept is based upon reducing the interference the undesired components to minimum at UG receiver using the receive beamforming. In this paper, underground environment aware MIMO using transmit and receive beamforming has been developed. The optimal transmit beamforming and receive combining vectors under minimal inter-component interference constraint are derived. It is shown that UG MIMO performs best when all three component of the wireless UG channel are leveraged for beamforming. The environment aware UG MIMO technique leads to threefold performance improvements and paves the wave for design and development of next generation sensor-guided irrigation systems in the field of digital agriculture.