Research challenges involving cross-layered communication protocol design for underground WSNS

There are existing applications of underground sensing, such as soil monitoring for agriculture and air quality monitoring in underground coal mines. From a severely impaired underground channel to practical considerations such as power conservation. It is necessary to reexamine existing terrestrial WSN communication protocols and develop new protocols which address these issues. We show that the condition of the underground channel is highly dependent on the properties of the soil or rock, particularly the water content. We present also that major research challenges at each layer of the protocol stack and a cross-layer protocol solution.