EAGER: Exploring Magnetic Communications for Challenging Environments

磁感应（MI）是指电流通过发送线圈时，会在与发送线圈相距很近的接收线圈中感应到电流，并调谐到相同共振频率的现象。MI也可以通过调制电流来携带信息。与射频（RF）通信不同，基于mi的通信可以提供几个优点，例如低能耗，能够在各种困难的传播介质（例如，淡水/海水，非铁磁性金属，地下等）中可靠地工作，以及由于信号随距离的快速衰减而导致的低泄漏可能性。此外，由于MI技术对有效的电力传输也很有用，因此它也提供了被动标记的可能性。MI技术目前还没有得到很好的探索，也没有商业电路板可以灵活地配置用于实验。该项目的主要目的是开发相对便宜的基于MI的收发器板，并利用它们探索MI技术在几种新兴应用中的应用，特别是在新兴智能基础设施背景下的应用。该项目将为基于mi的通信开发电路板，以支持该技术的实验研究。电路板将提供灵活的控制工作频率，线圈大小和工作电压。该项目将通过实验探索通过各种媒体的MI通信的范围、功耗和鲁棒性，以增强对该技术优点和局限性的理解。本文还将探讨这种设置中的多输入多输出（MIMO）功能，以提高数据速率，以及增加范围的技术。通过建立几个智能智能通信板，该项目将探索它们在几个应用中的应用，包括在线监测和跟踪新鲜食品供应链，智能购物环境中自动识别智能智能标签物品，以及智能农业环境中在线监测土壤。这些应用中的每一种都有独特的特性和要求，因此可以对基于mi的通信进行全面的实验评估。该项目还将使其他研究人员能够使用我们的设计和电路板，进一步探索具有社会重要性的各种其他智能基础设施应用的MI技术。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Magnetic Induction (MI) refers to the phenomenon where a current passed through a transmitter coil induces a current in a receiver coil that is separated by a short distance from the transmitter coil and is tuned to the same resonance frequency. MI can also be used to carry information by modulating the current. Unlike radio frequency (RF) communication, MI-based communication can provide several benefits such as low energy use, ability to work reliably in a variety of difficult propagation media (e.g., fresh/sea water, non-ferromagnetic metals, underground, etc.), and low leakage possibility because of fast decay of the signal with distance. Furthermore, since the MI technology is useful for efficient power transfer as well, it provides the possibility of passive tagging as well. MI technology is currently not well explored, and there are no commercial circuit boards that can be flexibly configured for experimentation. The primary purpose of this project is to develop relatively inexpensive MI-based transceiver boards and use them to explore the use of MI technology in several emerging applications, particularly those in the emerging smart infrastructure context.The project will develop circuit boards for MI-based communications to support experimental research into this technology. The boards will provide flexible control of the operational frequency, coil size, and operating voltage. The project will experimentally explore the range, power consumption, robustness of the MI communications through a variety of media to enhance the understanding of the merits and limitations of the technology. It will also explore the Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) capabilities in this setup for increasing data rates, and techniques to increase the range. By building several MI communications boards, the project will explore their use in several applications including on-line monitoring and tracking of fresh food supply chain, automated identification of MI tagged items in the smart shopping context and online monitoring of soil in the smart agriculture context. Each of these applications has a unique set of characteristics and requirements and thus can provide a comprehensive experimental evaluation of MI-based communications. The project will also enable other researchers to use our design and boards to further explore the MI technology for a variety of other smart infrastructure applications of societal importance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.