Short Paper: Antennas for Mussel-Based Underwater

Biological Sensor Networks in Rivers

Kenneth P. Hunt James J. Niemeier Anton Kruger
IIHR-Hydroscience and Engineering IIHR-Hydroscience and Engineering IIHR-Hydroscience and Engineering
100 C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics 100 C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics 523C C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics
Laboratory Laboratory Laboratory
Iowa City, IA 52242-1585 Iowa City, IA 52242-1585 Iowa City, IA 52242-1585
+1 319-354-1079 +1 319 335 5376 +1 319-335-6287
kphunt@engineering.uiowa.edu jjniemei@engineering.uiowa.edu anton-kruger@uiowa.edu

ABSTRACT
Researchers are working on using freshwater mussels as
biological sensors. A sensor placed on the mussel detects the
mussel’s rhythmic opening and closing, or gape. Changes in the
gape can indicate changes in the mussel’s environment. We plan
to attach gape sensors, microcontrollers, and radios to mussels and
place them back in their natural environment. Small, inexpensive
radios operating in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM)
bands will provide the physical link of an underwater wireless
sensor network (WSN). Despite the attenuation radio waves
experience in water, the low cost of these radios should allow us
to deploy enough to set up a reliable communications network.
While commercially available radios can be used underwater with
waterproofing, antennas designed for use in air are unsuitable for
use in water, because of the different electromagnetic properties
of water and air. We designed dipole, loop, and folded dipole
antennas for use in water and attached these to transmitters. We
measured the power transmitted by the antennas by immersing the
transmitters in a tank of water and measuring the received power
at different distances using a small dipole antenna attached to a
spectrum analyzer. The distance between the antennas was
precisely controlled with a motorized xy positioner.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

C.2.0 [Computer Communications Networks]: General – data Figure 1. Researchers at The University of Iowa are creating
communications C.3 [Computer Communications Networks]: underwater biological sensor networks, where mussels form
Special-purpose and applications-based systems – Real-time and the nodes in the network. In this paper, we focus on effective
embedded systems antennas for the ISM radios that provide the physical link
between the nodes.
General Terms
Measurement, Design, Experimentation

Keywords 1. INTRODUCTION
At The University of Iowa we are designing a system using
Antenna, electromagnetic, underwater, radio, communications,
freshwater mussels as biological sensors [1] and [2], Figure 1
wireless sensor network
depicts the general approach. Mussels are instrumented with
Hall-effect sensors and magnets. The sensors detect the rhythmic
opening and closing of the mussels (called the mussel gape).
Changes in the mussel gape can indicate environmental stress,
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for changes in mussels’ food supply, or may serve as a proxy for
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are turbidity. Additionally, mussels collectively have the potential to
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that significantly affect dissolved oxygen content and nitrate levels in
copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy river reaches. There are several examples of tethered mussel
otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, biological sensors [3], [4], and [5]. Our vision is to instrument
requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
WUWNet’10, Sept. 30 – Oct 1, 2010, Woods Hole, MA, USA. mussels and place them back in their natural environment, but
Copyright 2010 ACM 1-58113-000-0/00/0010…$10.00. untethered. Small, inexpensive radios operating in the Industrial,
Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands will provide the physical link propagation is intrinsic impedance η, the ratio of the transverse
of an underwater wireless sensor network (WSN). The electric and magnetic fields, which determines power transfer.
microcontrollers and radios on the mussels cooperate, using the
WSN paradigm, and deliver data packets to a base station that  = ⁄( + ) (7)
relays the information to remote serves where the gathered
Water exhibits two types of properties, depending on whether the
information is analyzed. frequency is greater or less than the transition frequency [11]
The attenuation of electromagnetic waves at ISM frequencies is  =  ⁄ (8)
high (13.6 dB/m at 315 MHz, 17.6 dB/m at 433 MHz and 266
dB/m at 2.4 GHz). However, our calculations show that one can When ω >> σ/ωt which is the case in freshwater for the
still achieve reliable communication over distances of up to 15 commodity motes we plan to use, the attenuation constant has
feet in river water at the lower (315- and 433 MHz) frequencies. reached a maximum and would be independent of frequency if the
effective conductivity was a constant.
2. ELECTROMAGNETIC PROPAGATION
IN WATER ≅ ( ⁄2) ⁄ . (9)
The propagation constant  determines the changes in an The propagation constant and intrinsic impedance are
electromagnetic wave as it propagates in a given direction [6] and approximately those of a lossless dielectric [11]
[7]. The propagation constant is given by

≅ √ (10)
 = ( + ) (1)
 ≅ μ⁄ε (11)
where ω is the angular frequency, μ is the magnetic permeability,
and ε the electric permittivity. The propagation constant has a real Because the permittivity of water is about 9 times that of air, the
attenuation constant α and an imaginary phase constant β [6] intrinsic impedance is about a 1/9 that in air and the propagation
constant is about 9 times that in air. From the expression for
 = + 
(2) wavelength

=  √ 1 + (⁄) − 1 (3)  = 2/
(12)
it follows that the wavelength λ in water is about an 1/9 that in air.
For a frequency of 433 MHz a wavelength in water is .0774

= √ 1 + (⁄) + 1. (4)

 meters or 3 inches. In this paper wavelength always refers to this
quantity.
The attenuation constant determines the rate of decay of
propagating electromagnetic wave and the phase constant 3. ANTENNA BACKGROUND
determines the rate of phase change. The two major differences The antenna radiation pattern is the radiation intensity as a
between air and water are in conductivity and electrical function of either azimuthal or elevation angle. An isotropic
permittivity. Unlike air, water is a conducting medium and antenna would be one that radiated in all directions equally. An
dissipates energy as heat when an electromagnetic wave omnidirectional antenna is one that radiates uniformly in one
propagates through the water. The conductivity of salt water is plane [12]. The radiation resistance  is that part of the
about 4 S/m, [8] but the conductivity of the Iowa River is much resistance seen at the input terminals caused by electromagnetic
less, about 0.05 S/m. In our experimental setup (see below) the radiation from the antenna. The other part is caused by losses.
measured conductivity of the water was about 0.034 S/m. The An antenna with a large radiation resistance is more efficient,
relative electrical permittivity of a medium is the ratio of the because the power radiated is larger than the power lost. The
electrical permittivity of that medium to that of a vacuum. input impedance of an antenna is the impedance at its input
Relative permittivity is a complex quantity [9]. terminals, both the real and imaginary part. The maximum power
 = ′ − ′′ (5) is delivered to the antenna when the antenna and transmitter are
matched, that is the input impedance of the antenna equals the
The relative permittivity of air is about one. The relative complex conjugate of the output impedance of the transmitter.
permittivity of water is about 80 at microwave frequencies, one of The maximum power is delivered to a receiver when the receiver
the highest of any substance. At the frequency we used in the and antenna are matched [12]. Because of the difference in
experiments, 433 MHz, the relative permittivity of water is 80.17 wavelength, the physical dimensions of an antenna in water would
–j1.924 [10]. Water is a polar molecule and rotates when exposed be about 1/9 of the dimensions of an equivalent antenna in air.
to an alternating electric field. The imaginary part of the relative Because of the difference in intrinsic impedance, the input
permittivity is a measure of the energy lost due to collisions impedance of an antenna in water would be about 1/9 of the input
during that rotation. The losses due to conductivity and the impedance of the equivalent antenna in air.
imaginary portion of conductivity can be considered an effective
conductivity [9] 4. ANTENNA REQUIREMENTS
We have been exploring different antennas for use in the mussel-
 =  +  ′′ (6) based underwater WSN depicted in Figure 1. An effective
The energy loss can be greater than conduction losses at high antenna for this application must meet a number of requirements.
frequencies. For our experiment the effective conductivity is 0.8 Primarily, the antenna must be small enough so that one can glue
= 0.034 + 0.046. Another important constant for electromagnetic this to a mussel. Mussel sizes vary with age and species—we
currently focus on mussels that are about 3 inches long and 2
Figure 2. Experimental set up. The tank is filled with water Figure 3. The antennas tested compared to the size of the
and the stepper motor precisely controls the distance between mussel we would mount them on.
the transmitter and the receiving antennas. interior may be acceptable. This proved to be the case in our
inches wide. One wants the antennas not much larger than 50% of experiment.
these dimensions, namely 1.5 inches × 1 inch. We do not make
assumptions regarding mussel orientation, so an isotropic antenna A length of PVC pipe extends vertically from the center of the
is desirable. Mussels may bury themselves in the mud layer in a bottom of the tank. On top of this lower pipe, we placed a module
river when seeking protection. Thus, the antenna must operate in containing a Radiotronix RCT-433-AS (B) transmitter sealed in
river water, or partially- and even completely buried in sediment. epoxy. The transmitter has an output impedance of 50 ohms and
These different environments have different conductivities and contains a simple network to match antenna impedances close to
dielectric constants, and these impacts wavelengths of 50 ohms to the transmitter. A computer-controlled x-y positioner
electromagnetic waves. Furthermore, the electrical conductivity is located on top of the tank. Another PCV pipe extends vertically
in a river varies with time so that antenna radiates into a non- down into the tank from the positioner. The experimental setup
stationary propagation environment. This implies that a allows one to position the receiving antenna accurately (~ 2 mm)
broadband antenna is preferable to a highly tuned, narrowband with excellent repeatability.
antenna. Also, as we outline above, river water presents a Attached to the upper pipe was a receiving antenna consisting of a
significantly-different environment to an antenna and attached small insulated dipole with a total length of 5/8 inch (0.2 λ). This
radio than does the air. The water affects the radiation pattern and receiving antenna was at the same depth as the transmitter. A
antenna impedance, and thus the overall efficiency of the cable leads from the receiving antenna to an Agilent N9340B
transmitter. Still, our goal is to use very simple, inexpensive spectrum analyzer. The antenna to be evaluated is attached to the
antennas, and avoid impedance matching networks. We want to transmitter and the positioner moves the receiving antenna in
identify antennas that will allow non-electrical engineering
researchers to easily construct underwater biological sensor
networks. Finally, antennas in water are prone to corrosion and
fouling. An insulated antenna is preferred to one made of bare
metal.

5. METHODOLOGY
We investigated the performance of three well-known antennas,
namely the dipole, loop, and folded dipole as follows. We
designed these antennas as if they would operate in air, but
reduced the dimensions by 9 to account for the wavelength
shortening that occurs in water. Figure 2 shows the experimental
setup, which consists of a circular plastic tank 8 feet in diameter
and 7 feet tall, filled with water ( ≅ 0.05 S/m). In any enclosed
area reflections from sides and bottom can be a source of error.
The amount of reflection can be minimized by the choice of tank
material or by special coatings. Since electromagnetic waves
attenuate as they travel through water, the ratio of reflected wave
to transmitted wave is a maximum at the edge and a minimum at Figure 4. Transmitted power as a function of dipole length at
the center. Therefore the error in measurements made in the maximum range (27 inches)
 the oscillations are less than 0.5 dB peak-to-peak, indicating that
reflections are not a significant factor in the measurement region.
In the very near field, the insulated loop performs better than any
other antenna, but the received power falls off very rapidly. The
power of the insulated loop shows significant variation at greater
distances.
Our results show that a simple, insulated dipole outperforms the
other candidate antennas, and meet the other important
requirement, namely be small enough to be attached to a
freshwater mussel. However, there are other factors which we
have not yet explored. The close proximity of the mussel and the
river bottom may affect transmitted power, as could interference
by reflections from the water free surface. Finally, in the future
we plan to measure the radiation patterns of the antennas to see
which is most isotropic.

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