Multi-Resonant Frequency Shift Keying: A Novel and Efficient Modulation Scheme for Magnetic Communication

Magnetic communication is a promising technique in harsh environments, such as seawater. To enable efficient communication, transmitting and receiving coils are conventionally operated as part of resonant circuits. However, this results in narrow bandwidths and the associated disadvantages. Thus, most digital modulation schemes cannot be used efficiently on these systems. In this contribution, a mixed hardware/software approach for efficient frequency shift keying is presented. With this energy-efficient modulation concept, the full available bandwidth of a receiver can be utilized for data transmission, while all advantages of using a resonant circuit on the transmitter side can be retained. Towards this goal, a transmitter-side resonant circuit is designed, which supports discrete switching between multiple resonant frequencies. The data symbols are mapped onto these unique resonant frequencies. This prevents the parasitic amplitude modulation associated with conventional frequency shift keying applied to narrow bandwidth circuits, resulting in maximum transmitted magnitude and minimum symbol distortion without need for any further measures. Furthermore, the frequency spacing and/or the cardinality of the symbol alphabet can be increased considerably. At the receiver side, the classical pick-up coil is replaced by a high-sensitivity broadband magnetic field sensor. Numerical results of the mixed hardware/software scheme are provided, and are verified by an experimental setup. This setup is constructed using principles from the field of power electronics and demonstrates, how this modulation concept can be implemented with relatively simple and highly energy efficient electronics and without the use of linear amplifiers in particular.