Channel and energy analysis on magnetic induction-based wireless sensor networks in oil reservoirs

The networks of micro-sized wireless sensors will enable the in-situ monitoring in the challenging oil reservoir environments, which can significantly increase the current recovery factor of crude oil and natural gas. However, due to the micro device size defined by the environmental structure and the harsh wireless channel in the complicated dense media, traditional wireless communication and networking solutions do not work in oil reservoirs. To address the problems, in this paper, the system architecture and operational framework of a Magnetic Induction (MI)-based wireless sensor network is proposed, where both the wireless energy transfer and the wireless communications in the oil reservoir environments are realized by the magnetic induction technique. More importantly, the wireless channel model and the energy transfer/consumption model of such networks are analytically developed to validate the feasibility of the proposed system architecture and operational framework.