Design and optimization of the electromagnetic front-end for wireless sensors floating in dissipative media

The interest in the exploitation of wireless sensor networks in dissipative media (other than the free space) is nowadays growing in importance, thanks to the identification of newer and newer fields of application. This paper introduces a methodology for the analysis of the geometrical parameters of the antenna. The proposed procedure takes into account the coupling mechanism with the surrounding medium, as well as the electromagnetic interaction with the electronic and metallic components of the sensor. In this way, the identification of the parameters can be carried out by an introduction of a simplified iterative pre-conditioned modeling procedure that avoids long running times typical of a complete full wave model. Results obtained for the analysis of mobile sensor networks floating in underground water conduits confirm the adequacy of the proposed method.