Signal Propagation Models in Soil Medium for the Study of Wireless Underground Sensor Networks: A Review of Current Trends

Table 2

Comparison between IoUT communication technologies: EM, MI, and acoustic.

Parameters	EM	MI	Acoustic
Transmission range	Few meters	In 10s of meters	In 100s of meters
Attenuation	High	Low	High
Interference	High	Low	Medium
Installation cost	Moderate	Medium	Medium
Data rate	In bps	In kbps	In 10s of bps
Application	Agriculture, seismic exploration, intrusion detection, buried pipeline monitoring (oil and gas, water), downhole telemetry	Downhole telemetry	Seismic exploration, buried pipeline monitoring, downhole telemetry
Advantages	High data rate compared to acoustic systems, easy to install, support multihop communication	The high data rate, low attenuation, and support multihop communication	High data rate compared to MPT systems, long transmission range
Disadvantages	High attenuation and interference, limited transmission range, and requires a large antenna	The orientation between coils is required; limited transmission range needs dense deployment	High attenuation and lower data rate than EM and MI