Investigation of Empirical Wave Propagation Models in Precision Agriculture

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks have highly proved its contribution in precision agriculture. Communication channel modelling investigation is a highly demanded to achieve a successful communication system where a good wave propagation model is crucially needed. Precision agriculture degrades the traveling waves in various forms in addition to the effects of the large-scale path losses models. This paper reviews the most known theoretical large-scale path losses models such as free space (FSPL) and Plane earth (PE) models as well as the vegetation models represented by Weissberger, ITU-R, FITU-R and COS235 models. Indeed, this work illustrates the effects of many factors on the total path losses such as separation distance between transceivers, antenna heights and the depth of vegetation that presence in the path propagation. In conclusion, the total path loss is computed based on large-scale path losses and the vegetation losses in protected vegetation environment.