LoRaWAN Underground to Aboveground Data Transmission Performances for Different Soil Compositions

The aim of this article is to discuss the usability of the long-range (LoRa) transmission technology together with the LoRa wide-area network (LoRaWAN) protocol for underground monitoring activities. In particular, this article focuses on the transmission performances in different soils (i.e., gravel, sand, and clay), for an underground-to-aboveground (UG2AG) communication. The three soils have been chosen in order to test the system behavior in case of pure soil compositions, in order to provide a general result that can be used to evaluate the transmission chances for any kind of soil. The performances of the transmission channel have been tested using an experimental setup for depths up to 50 cm, acquiring the values of the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for every transmission and analyzing the packet loss (PL). Such a kind of system may be crucial in several application scenarios, such as environmental monitoring or smart agriculture, where the real-time, remote acquisition of underground parameters at different depths is required.

[1]  C. Wentworth.  A Scale of Grade and Class Terms for Clastic Sediments , 1922, The Journal of Geology.

[2]  X Q Yu,et al.  Evaluation of communication in wireless underground sensor networks , 2017 .

[3]  Mahta Moghaddam,et al.  Design and Implementation of Low-Power and Mid-Range Magnetic-Induction-Based Wireless Underground Sensor Networks , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[4]  R. Folk,et al.  Brazos River bar [Texas]; a study in the significance of grain size parameters , 1957 .

[5]  Syed Asif Ali Shah,et al.  Internet of Things in Smart Agriculture: Enabling Technologies , 2019, 2019 IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT).

[6]  Marcus Hardie,et al.  Underground Wireless Data Transmission Using 433-MHz LoRa for Agriculture , 2019, Sensors.

[7]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Dynamic Connectivity in Wireless Underground Sensor Networks , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[8]  Julie A. McCann,et al.  Demystifying low-power wide-area communications for city IoT applications , 2016, WiNTECH@MobiCom.

[9]  Yi Yang,et al.  Lora propagation testing in soil for wireless underground sensor networks , 2017, 2017 Sixth Asia-Pacific Conference on Antennas and Propagation (APCAP).

[10]  S. Luca,et al.  Magdala harbour sedimentation (Sea of Galilee, Israel), from natural to anthropogenic control , 2013 .

[11]  Yi Yang,et al.  Design of propagation testnode for LoRa based wireless underground sensor networks , 2017, 2017 Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium - Fall (PIERS - FALL).

[12]  Jianya Chen,et al.  EM Wave Propagation in Non-uniform Soil , 2013 .

[13]  Kay Römer,et al.  An Experimental Evaluation of the Reliability of LoRa Long-Range Low-Power Wireless Communication , 2017, J. Sens. Actuator Networks.

[14]  Justin Spangaro,et al.  Usability of LoRaWAN Technology in a Central Business District , 2017, 2017 IEEE 85th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC Spring).

[15]  Mehmet C. Vuran,et al.  Impacts of soil moisture on cognitive radio underground networks , 2013, 2013 First International Black Sea Conference on Communications and Networking (BlackSeaCom).

[16]  F. Ulaby,et al.  Microwave Dielectric Behavior of Wet Soil-Part II: Dielectric Mixing Models , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[17]  Lorenzo Parri,et al.  Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) at Sea: Performance Analysis of Offshore Data Transmission by Means of LoRaWAN Connectivity for Marine Monitoring Applications , 2019, Sensors.

[18]  Heng Zhang,et al.  Propagation characteristics of the Underground-to-Aboveground Communication link about 2.4GHz and 433MHz radio wave: An empirical study in the pine forest of Guizhou Province , 2017, 2017 3rd IEEE International Conference on Computer and Communications (ICCC).

[19]  Nicole Metje,et al.  A New Approach to Estimating the Path Loss in Underground Wireless Sensor Networks , 2017, J. Sens. Actuator Networks.

[20]  Suat Irmak,et al.  Pulses in the sand: Impulse response analysis of wireless underground channel , 2016, IEEE INFOCOM 2016 - The 35th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications.

[21]  Andrea Abrardo,et al.  A Multi-Hop LoRa Linear Sensor Network for the Monitoring of Underground Environments: The Case of the Medieval Aqueducts in Siena, Italy , 2019, Sensors.

[22]  E.P. Stuntebeck,et al.  Wireless underground sensor networks using commodity terrestrial motes , 2006, 2006 2nd IEEE Workshop on Wireless Mesh Networks.

[23]  Mehmet Can Vuran,et al.  Communication with Aboveground Devices in Wireless Underground Sensor Networks: An Empirical Study , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Communications.

[24]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Wireless underground sensor networks: Research challenges , 2006, Ad Hoc Networks.

[25]  Valery L. Mironov,et al.  Physically and Mineralogically Based Spectroscopic Dielectric Model for Moist Soils , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[26]  Cui Jian,et al.  Smartphone based LoRa in-soil propagation measurement for wireless underground sensor networks , 2017, 2017 IEEE Conference on Antenna Measurements & Applications (CAMA).

[27]  Wenting Han,et al.  Path Loss Estimation for Wireless Underground Sensor Network in Agricultural Application , 2017, Agricultural Research.

[28]  Frank Blumensaat,et al.  Synchronous LoRa Mesh Network to Monitor Processes in Underground Infrastructure , 2019, IEEE Access.

[29]  Anna Förster,et al.  A New Approach for Path Loss Prediction in Wireless Underground Sensor Networks , 2019, 2019 IEEE 44th LCN Symposium on Emerging Topics in Networking (LCN Symposium).

[30]  Mehmet C. Vuran,et al.  Internet of underground things in precision agriculture: Architecture and technology aspects , 2018, Ad Hoc Networks.

[31]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Author's Personal Copy Physical Communication Channel Model and Analysis for Wireless Underground Sensor Networks in Soil Medium , 2022 .

[32]  Alexander Grunwald,et al.  LoRaWAN in a rural context: Use cases and opportunities for agricultural businesses , 2019 .

[33]  Suat Irmak,et al.  Autonomous precision agriculture through integration of wireless underground sensor networks with center pivot irrigation systems , 2013, Ad Hoc Networks.

[34]  Abdul Salam,et al.  Impacts of Soil Type and Moisture on the Capacity of Multi-Carrier Modulation in Internet of Underground Things , 2016, 2016 25th International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN).

[35]  Wenting Han,et al.  ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE PROPAGATION IN SOIL FOR WIRELESS UNDERGROUND SENSOR NETWORKS , 2013 .

[36]  J. Beringer,et al.  Dataset: LoRa Underground Farm Sensor Network , 2019, DATA@SenSys.

[37]  A. Sridharan,et al.  A Simplified Approach of Determining the Specific Gravity of Soil Solids , 2012, Geotechnical and Geological Engineering.

[38]  Nasir Saeed,et al.  Toward the Internet of Underground Things: A Systematic Survey , 2019, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[39]  Young Uk Kim,et al.  Wireless transmission of acoustic emission signals for real-time monitoring of leakage in underground pipes , 2011 .

[40]  Mehmet C. Vuran,et al.  Towards Internet of Underground Things in smart lighting: A statistical model of wireless underground channel , 2017, 2017 IEEE 14th International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC).

[41]  Alessandro Pozzebon,et al.  LoRaWAN Performances for Underground to Aboveground Data Transmission , 2020, 2020 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC).

[42]  Nasir Saeed,et al.  3D Localization for Internet of Underground Things in Oil and Gas Reservoirs , 2019, IEEE Access.

[43]  Kai-Hsiang Ke,et al.  Monitoring of Large-Area IoT Sensors Using a LoRa Wireless Mesh Network System: Design and Evaluation , 2018, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[44]  Muhammad Mahtab Alam,et al.  Evaluation of low power wide area network technologies for smart urban drainage systems , 2018, 2018 IEEE International Conference on Environmental Engineering (EE).

[45]  Gerhard P. Hancke,et al.  Experimental Link Quality Characterization of Wireless Sensor Networks for Underground Monitoring , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

[46]  Christian Wietfeld,et al.  SoMoS — A multidimensional radio field based soil moisture sensing system , 2017, 2017 IEEE SENSORS.

[47]  G.P.S. Cavalcante,et al.  Neural networks for estimating electrical characteristics of the surface of the Earth , 1996, MMET '96. VIth International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Electromagnetic Theory. Proceedings.

[48]  M. Johannes Tiusanen,et al.  Soil Scouts: Description and performance of single hop wireless underground sensor nodes , 2013, Ad Hoc Networks.

[49]  Dirkjan Krijnders,et al.  Sensor Motes for the Exploration and Monitoring of Operational Pipelines , 2018, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[50]  Konstantin Mikhaylov,et al.  Performance of a low-power wide-area network based on LoRa technology: Doppler robustness, scalability, and coverage , 2017, Int. J. Distributed Sens. Networks.

[51]  Ali Ahmadinia,et al.  Evaluation of LoRa and LoRaWAN for wireless sensor networks , 2016, 2016 IEEE SENSORS.