Study of wireless communication through coal using dielectric constant

Abstract

Dielectric constant is an important parameter having a wide range of applications in satellite and terrestrial communication, wireless communication especially for GPS, environmental monitoring and ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys. It controls vertical and horizontal imaging, resolution, propagation velocity of electromagnetic waves through material, and reflection coefficients across interfaces of different materials. Although the communication process gets disrupted due to lower penetration ability of Electromagnetic Wave. High dielectric constant of the medium, low frequency and attenuation constant of EM wave etc. are main culprits of this disruption. Hence, in order to find a solution to this problem, four modeled coal samples of variable porosity, mineralogy, and saturation are taken. It is observed that the bulk dielectric constant generally varies from 2 to 38 in the materials modeled. The decrease in dielectric constant with increase in frequency is mainly due to polarization of polar molecule and non-polar molecule of coal under the influence of extra electric field. Hence, in order to receive the reflected EM waves above background noise, the dielectric constant of the material medium must be greater than 2.