Characterization of near-ground radio propagation channel for wireless sensor network with application in smart agriculture

Abstract

In this contribution, we present a narrowband radio channel model for a scenario wherein the radio link operates under near-ground conditions, occurring on a ZigBee wireless sensor networks applied to smart agriculture. A near-ground network deployment can be useful to avoid tall antenna masts, or once crops grow. Among the examined scenarios, we analyzed path loss caused when placing sensor nodes in soil, short and tall grass fields. We measured the received power when locating both transmitter and receiver antennas at two different heights. The path loss was then estimated as dependent of the radio link range. In another scenario, RSSI were obtained to analyze the communication quality between sensor nodes using same antennas heights as the previous scenarios, only for the case of a short grass field.