Modeling of Medium- and Long-Range Electromagnetic Communication Channel for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Electromagnetic (EM) waves are one of the important carriers to realize information exchange between nodes in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs). Building an accurate channel model is conducive to promoting the application of underwater EM communication (UEMC) in UWSNs. However, due to the complexity of the computational process, most of the channel models in existing studies are too simple to accurately represent the channel characteristics. Therefore, a new medium- and long-range UEMC channel modeling method based on the Goos-Hänchen (GH) shift is proposed in this article. In this work, the process of medium- and long-range propagation of underwater EM waves was explained, and the attenuation of underwater EM fields under different paths was analyzed. The expression of the underwater EM field components was obtained, and its accuracy was verified. A medium- and long-range UEMC channel model was established based on the obtained EM field, and the channel response and path loss were obtained. The simplified formulas suitable for ocean engineering were given for the first time, and the impact of parameters on the channel was analyzed. The results show that the medium- and long-range UEMC is affected by communication frequency, EM parameters, seawater depth, and node location at the same time. The studies in this work are helpful for the deployment of nodes and the selection of communication frequencies in UWSNs.