Full-Duplex Magnetic Induction Communication: Opportunities and Challenges

TL;DR

This paper explores full-duplex magnetic induction communication to double data rates in underwater applications, addressing challenges like self-interference and orientation sensitivity with a novel transceiver design.

Contribution

It introduces a two-dimensional transceiver architecture for full-duplex MI communication, enhancing bandwidth utilization and addressing key practical challenges.

Findings

Full-duplex MI can potentially double data rates.

The proposed architecture effectively mitigates self-interference.

Performance is sensitive to orientation and practical implementation challenges.

Abstract

The demand for high data rates is rapidly increasing as the interest in Magnetic Induction (MI) communication-based underwater applications grow. However, the data rate in MI is limited by the use of low operational frequency in generating a quasi-static magnetic field. In this paper, we propose the use of full-duplex (FD) MI communication to efficiently utilize the available bandwidth and instantly double the data rate. We propose a two-dimensional transceiver architecture to achieve full-duplex communication by exploiting the directional nature of magnetic fields. We further evaluate the proposed end-to-end FD MI communication against self-interference (SI), its impact on communication distance, and robustness in view of orientation sensitivity. Finally, we conclude by discussing typical challenges in the realization of FD MI communication and highlight a few potential future research directions.