Deployment Algorithms for Wireless Underground Sensor Networks Using Magnetic Induction

New propagation techniques using magnetic induction (MI) waveguide solve the problems of traditional techniques in the underground soil medium. However, the deployment of the MI waveguide to connect the wireless underground sensor networks (WUSNs) is challenging due to the high deployment cost and the complex shape of the communication range of the MI waveguides. In this paper, two algorithms are proposed to deploy the MI waveguides to connect the underground sensors in the WUSNs. To minimize the number of relay coils, the MST algorithm based on the minimum spanning tree is developed. However, the network constructed by the MST algorithm is not robust to sensor failures. To enhance the network robustness with acceptable relay coil number, the TC algorithm based on the Voronoi diagram is developed. The effectiveness of the proposed deployment algorithms is validated by simulations.