Mobile data harvesting in wireless underground sensor networks

Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) allow for continuous field monitoring without interfering with aboveground activities, such as plowing or football games. Due to the increased path loss in soil, it is challenging to ensure that a large-scale underground network is connected while still being cost effective in terms of deployment and maintenance. In this paper, a practical WUSN architecture is developed, consisting of mobile nodes that harvest data from stationary underground nodes. To this end, the impacts of packet size and error control schemes on network performance are investigated through field experiments. By developing a better understanding of the wireless channel and the reliability between underground and aboveground nodes, a family of mobile WUSN protocols is developed and evaluated in terms of packet delivery success, delay tolerance and network lifetime.