Because of its potential applications in agriculture, environment monitoring and so on, wireless underground sensor network(WUSN) has been researched more and more extensively in recent years. The main and most important difference of WUSN to terrestrial wireless sensor network(WSN) is the channel characteristics, which determines the design methodology of it. In this paper, the propagation character of electromagnetic(EM) wave in the near surface WUSN is analyzed, as well as the path loss model of it is given. In addition, the influence of human's ankle to the channel characteristics of near surface WUSN is investigated by electromagnetic theory analysis, simulation and experiment. A novel path loss model of near surface WUSN which takes the interference of human's ankle into consideration is proposed. It is verified that the existing of human above the WUSN system may cause additional attenuation to the signal of near surface WUSN which propagates as lateral wave along the ground. Moreover, the relation of the attenuation and operating frequency is deduced, which gives a reference to extend the frequency band applied in WUSN.
In this study, finite element analysis based on an Ansoft Maxwell software was used to reveal the temperature stability of a magnet ring and the equivalent structural periodic permanent-magnet(PPM) focusing system. It is found that with the temperature increasing, the decrease rate of magnetic induction peak(Bz)maxof single magnet ring is greater than that of remanence Brof magnet in the range from room temperature to 200 °C, however,the PPM focusing system do have the same temperature characteristics of permanent-magnet materials. It indicates that the magnetic temperature properties of the PPM system can be effectively controlled by adjusting the temperature properties of the magnets. Moreover, the higher permeability of the magnets indicates the less Hcb, giving rise to lower magnetic induction peak (Bz)′max: Finally, it should be noted that the magnetic orientation deviation angle θ(\15°) of permanent magnets has little effect on the focusing magnetic field of the PPM system at different temperatures and the temperature stability. The obtained results are beneficial to the design and selection of permanent magnets for PPM focusing system.
