M2I communication: From theoretical modeling to practical design

Wireless communications in complex environments are constrained by lossy media and complicated structures. Magnetic Induction (MI) has been proved to be an efficient solution to extend the communication range. Due to the small coil antenna's physical limitation, however, MI's communication range is still very limited. To this end, Metamaterial-enhanced Magnetic Induction (M²I) communication has been proposed and the theoretical results suggest that it can significantly increase the communication performance, namely, data rate and communication range. Nevertheless, currently, the real implementation of M²I is still a challenge and there is no guideline on design and fabrication of spherical metamaterial. In this paper, we propose a practical design by using a spherical coil array to realize M²I and we prove that it can achieve negative permeability and there exists a resonance condition where the radiated magnetic field can be significantly amplified. The radiation and communication performance are evaluated and full-wave simulation in COMSOL Multiphysics is conducted to validate the design objectives. By using the spherical coil array-based M²I, the communication range can be significantly extended, exactly as we predicted in the theoretical model.