Effect of Soil Properties on Hop Count Distribution in Wireless Underground Sensor Networks

This paper investigates the influence of soil properties in terms of texture, bulk density, and particle density on the hop count distribution in wireless underground sensor networks (WUSNs). Simulation studies are performed where several environmental and system parameters in these networks are examined. The results in this paper show that in WUSNs, hop count between random source and sink increases as the percentages of clay and water in soil get higher. In addition, there are more possibilities that source and sink are disconnected. This effect is particularly significant in medium and large sensor networks.