Title:  OilMoles: Design of Wireless Underground Self-contained Sensor Networks for Oil Reservoirs Monitoring

Committee: 

Dr. Akyildiz, Advisor   

Dr. Li, Chair

Dr. Sivakumar

Dr. Vuran

Abstract:

The objective of the proposed research is to design full integrated magnetic induction (MI)-based  Wireless Underground Sensor Networks (WUSNs) to enable reliable and efficient wireless communications in underground oil reservoirs to perform in-situ monitoring of oil reservoirs. This is very crucial for determining the sweet spot of oil and natural gas reserves. Wireless sensor nodes are a promising technology to collect data from oil reservoirs in real time. To this end, we propose contributions in four areas as follows: first, we developed a novel cross-layer communication framework for MI-based networks in dynamically changing underground environments. It combines a joint selection of modulation, channel coding and power control, a transmitter-based CDMA scheme and a geographic forwarding paradigm. Second, we developed a novel magnetic induction (MI)-based localization framework which exploits the unique properties of the MI field to determine the locations of the randomly deployed sensor nodes in oil reservoirs. Third, we proposes an accurate energy model framework of a linear oil sensor network topology that gives feasible sensors' transmission rates and sensor network topology while always guarantees enough energy. Then, we will design, develop and fabricate MI-based sensor nodes. Finally, we will develop a physical MI-based WUSN testbed to validate the performance of the proposed solutions in practical way as we are going to implement the proposed solutions in the designed MI-based sensor nodes.