Research on electromagnetic field characteristics of rotating-magnet based mechanical antenna through the earth

Conventional low-frequency electromagnetic wave (LFEM) transmitting antennas are enormous in size, which limits the application of LFEM in underground space. Rotating-magnet Based Mechanical Antennas can realize the miniaturization of low-frequency antennas, which is expected to bring new possibilities for underground electromagnetic detection or ground penetration communication. Firstly, this paper establishes a synthetic field method for solving the electromagnetic field of a rotating permanent magnet in the air-earth cross-domain case. The method equates the magnet as an orthogonal superposition of vertical and horizontal dipole sources, and the phase difference between vertical and horizontal dipole sources is 𝜋/2. Based on the half-space theory of multilayer planar media, the quasi-analytical solution of the electromagnetic field of the magnetic dipole in the case of air-earth trans dimensionality can be found by superposition. Secondly, based on the finite element numerical model, the trans-earth propagation characteristics of the electromagnetic field excited by the rotating permanent magnet across the air-earth dual domain are studied. At the same time, the radiation characteristics in the rotating plane of the permanent magnet are also studied. Again, this paper systematically investigates the influence of parameters such as earth conductivity, emission frequency, and propagation distance on the electromagnetic field propagation. Finally, the principle prototype is developed and experiments are carried out. The results show that the finite element numerical model established in this paper is correct, the experimental results are consistent with the theoretical values, and a field strength signal of 0.9 nT can be received at 20 m. The research work in this paper lays the foundation for the future use of mechanical antennas for electromagnetic detection and ground penetration communication.