Optimal energy-throughput efficiency for magneto-inductive underground sensor networks

To provide constant channel conditions for a great deal of distributed wireless sensors, magneto-inductive (MI) propagation technique suggests an attractive facilitation of underground sensor networks (USNs) for MI-USNs. However, to put this MI method into practice, a reliable and efficient data transportation is a must to fulfill a pre-defined level of quality of service (QoS). In this paper, a complete study is first given for the different communication functionalities from physical to network layers as well as the QoS requirements of applications. Rather than adopting the currently layered approach, a two-phase cross-layer protocol, called Xlayer, is then proposed to deliver statistical QoS guarantees and obtain both optimal energy savings and throughput gain concurrently. Simulation results conform that Xlayer achieves significant energy savings, high throughput efficiency, and dependable MI communication, thus facilitating a new design paradigm for MI-USNs.