Miniaturized buried low-frequency acoustically actuated magnetoelectric antenna for soil moisture adaptive underground communication

The low-frequency (LF) magnetoelectric (ME) antenna is promising for underground communication, especially in the Underground Internet of Things (UIoT). However, soil moisture and its variations significantly impact the data transmission rate and efficiency. Therefore, it is imperative to thoroughly investigate the communication characteristics of the ME antenna in soil environments with different humidity levels. This paper proposes a miniaturized LF ME antenna based on Terfenol-D/PZT/Terfenol-D layered structure. The proposed ME antenna can sense changes in the soil moisture without moving the wireless network sensor node while also enabling LF underground communication, which achieves soil moisture adaptive underground communication. It can operate continuously for an extended period under the set driving conditions (<i>P</i> _in = 152 mW). This research illuminates the potential of a miniaturized LF ME antenna for enabling adaptive underground wireless communication for soil moisture monitoring, which is expected to provide a new solution idea for the UIoT communication.