Signals in the Soil: Developments in Internet of Underground Things

This book provides an in-depth coverage of the most recent developments in the field of wireless underground communications, from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The authors identify technical challenges and discuss recent results related to improvements in wireless underground communications and soil sensing in Internet of Underground Things (IOUT). The book covers both existing network technologies and those currently in development in three major areas of SitS: wireless underground communications, subsurface sensing, and antennas in the soil medium. The authors explore novel applications of Internet of Underground Things in digital agriculture and autonomous irrigation management domains. The book is relevant to wireless researchers, academics, students, and decision agriculture professionals. The contents of the book are arranged in a comprehensive and easily accessible format. Focuses on fundamental issues of wireless underground communication and subsurface sensing; Includes advanced treatment of IOUT custom applications of variable-rate technologies in the field of decision agriculture, and covers protocol design and wireless underground channel modeling; Provides a detailed set of path loss, antenna, and wireless underground channel measurements in various novel Signals in the Soil (SitS) testbed settings.

Table of Contents:
Introduction.- Part 1: Physical Layer for Wireless Underground Communications.- Introduction to Wireless Underground (UG) Communications.- Electromagnetic Characteristics of the Soil.- Wireless Underground Channel Modeling.- Part 2: Underground Antenna and Radio Interface Technologies.- Modulation Schemes.- Channel Bandwidth and Capacity.- Energy Harvesting.- Underground Antenna Design.- UG Phased Arrays and Beamforming.- Diversity Reception.- Part 3: Novel Soil Sensing Techniques.- Soil Sensing.- Soil Moisture and Permittivity Estimation.- Zenneck Waves on Soil Surface .- Part 4: IOUT Applications in Urban Underground Infrastructure.- Monitoring and Real-time Soil Monitoring and Irrigation Automation.- Internet of Underground Things Advancements.- Digital Agriculture.- Autonomous Irrigation Management Architecture.- Urban Underground Infrastructure Monitoring.- Part 5: Recent Advances in Testbed Design and Implementation.- Empirical Results.- Conclusion.

About the Author :
Dr. Abdul Salam is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the Director of the Environmental Networking Technology Laboratory at Purdue University. He has also taught at the Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan and Islamia University, Bahawalpur. He served in Pakistan Army for nine years in a number of command, staff, and field roles. He held the principal position at the Army Public School and College, Thal Cantonment. He has won several awards including the ICCCN 2016 Best Student Paper Award, the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute Fellowship, the Gold Medal MS (CS) on securing first position in order of merit, and the 2016–2017 Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of two books, Internet of Things for Sustainable Community Development, and Signals in the Soil. He has published over50 research articles in major journals and international conferences. His recent research focuses on underground soil sensing, wireless communications, Internet of underground things in digital agriculture, sensor-guided irrigation systems, and vehicular communications. He has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE GRSS Remote Sensing Code Library from 2016 to 2018. He serves as the Associate Editor of the Advanced Electromagnetics Journal and Array (Elsevier). Dr. Salam received his B.Sc. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan, in 2001 and 2004, respectively, the M.S. degree in computer engineering from UET, Taxila, Pakistan, in 2012, and the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from the Cyber-Physical Networking Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA. Usman Raza is a Ph.D. student in computer and information technology at the Purdue University and a research assistant at Environmental Networking Technology (ENT) Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Abdul Salam. His research involves Internet of Underground Things, including the channel model, connectivity and network protocols.