Efficient talking in underground water pipelines

Magnetic induction is a prospective candidate for wireless communication in un-derground water pipelines. It can overcome many challenges of electromagnetic and acoustic methods in the underground environment. However, similar to the other methods, the communication system needs to transfer data efficiently and reliably from underground nodes to above-ground base stations because of ener-gy constraints. Furthermore, difficulties in repairing the underground devices re-quire proper hardware setup to minimise the maintenance. However, the optimal hardware setup and energy efficiency have yet to be studied in a real testbed, leaving a question about the influence of the underground environments on this method. This article presents our work in progress to address the above gaps. In particular, we introduce three questions and corresponding approach methodolo-gy in designing a magnetic induction communication, including the procedure to define an optimal hardware setup, the impact of underground conditions and the tradeoff between energy consumption and communication reliability.