A microstrip wideband antenna for underground applications

Designing antennas for underground use is a challenge due to the material the antenna will be buried in, most commonly soil. Dielectric properties such as relative permittivity and loss tangent of soil change with many factors that include moisture content, soil composition, temperature, salinity, etc. Any change in these environmental factors will affect the antenna performance through frequency shifting and more. Thus, a wideband antenna is needed to ensure desired frequencies remain operational with minimal signal loss. Additionally, lower frequencies of operation are necessary for acceptable communication as path loss increases at higher frequencies and lead to a significant degradation of transmission range. However, this also requires antenna miniaturization techniques due to the increase in antenna size.