The propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves through plasma in the near-

field region of low-frequency loop antenna

DongLin Liu, XiaoPing Li, Kai Xie, and ZhiWei Liu

Citation: Phys. Plasmas 22, 102106 (2015); doi: 10.1063/1.4932993

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4932993
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/php/22/10
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 PHYSICS OF PLASMAS 22, 102106 (2015)

The propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves through plasma

in the near-field region of low-frequency loop antenna
DongLin Liu,a) XiaoPing Li, Kai Xie, and ZhiWei Liu
School of Aerospace Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xian 710071, China
(Received 26 May 2015; accepted 23 September 2015; published online 12 October 2015)
A high-speed vehicle flying through the atmosphere between 100 and 20 km may suffer from a
communication blackout. In this paper, a low frequency system with an on-board loop antenna to
receive signals is presented as a potential blackout mitigation method. Because the plasma sheath
is in the near-field region of the loop antenna, the traditional scattering matrix method that is
developed for the far-field region may overestimate the electromagnetic (EM) waves attenuation.
To estimate the EM waves attenuation in the near-field region, EM interference (EMI) shielding
theory is introduced. Experiments are conducted, and the results verify the EMI shielding theorys
effectiveness. Simulations are also conducted with different plasma parameters, and the results
obtained show that the EM waves attenuation in the near-field region is far below than that in the
far-field region. The EM waves attenuation increases with the increase in electron density
and decreases with the increase in collision frequency. The higher the frequency, the larger is the
EM waves attenuation. During the entire re-entry phase of a RAM-C module, the EM waves
attenuations are below 10 dB for EM waves with a frequency of 1 MHz and below 1 dB for EM
waves with a frequency of 100 kHz. Therefore, the low frequency systems (e.g., Loran-C) may
provide a way to transmit some key information to high-speed vehicles even during the
communication blackout period. V C 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

[http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4932993]

I. INTRODUCTION the most important for low frequency EM waves. Because

the low frequency (100 kHz1 MHz) EM waves wavelength
A high-speed vehicle (HSV) flying through the atmos-
is hundreds to thousands of meters, while the plasma
phere between 100 and 20 km can experience a strong shock-
sheaths thickness is only a few centimeters,9 the plasma
heating that forms a plasma sheath around the vehicle. The
sheath is actually in the near-field region of the antenna
plasma sheath reduces the signal strength to such a degree
when a low frequency loop antenna is used to receive the
that communication failure may occur between the HSV and
EM wave. Generally, in the near-field region, the EM wave
the satellites or the ground equipment it is communicating
attenuation (or the shielding effectiveness (SE)) of a metal
with. This phenomenon is known as communication
shield is often different from its performance characteristics
blackout.16 To overcome the blackout, researchers have
in the far-field region.10,11 For example, a 1-mm-thick infi-
proposed a number of approaches36 such as aerodynamic
nite aluminum foil can attenuate the plane wave (the far-field
shaping, electrophilic injection or ablation, magnetic control,
case) with a frequency of 10 kHz by 50100 dB, but when a
and high communication frequency. In the 1970s, low fre-
loop antenna placed 1 cm away from the aluminum foil is
quency was also proposed as a potential solution.3 According
used to emit the EM wave, the total SE is only about 515
to the theory of electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation
dB.10 For low frequency EM waves, the plasma sheath acts
in plasma, when the EM waves frequency is far below the
as a conductor with similar properties of aluminum but with
collision frequency (ve) and the plasma frequency (fp), the
a much smaller conductivity. For this reason, the authors
efficiency of energy transfer from the EM wave to plasma is
expect that the plasma sheath will also attenuate the EM
decreased. This means the EM wave will attenuate less with
wave less in the near-field region of the loop antenna
respect to higher frequency EM wave just below fp. In the
compared with the far-field region.
analysis described above, only the EM wave absorption by
To evaluate the SE in the near-field region, researchers
plasma is considered; the EM wave reflection at the interface
have investigated several different methods. Moser discussed
of the plasma sheath and air is not taken into account.
these methods in considerable detail in a previous publica-
To estimate the total EM wave attenuation attributable
tion.12 The first analytical method is a theoretical determina-
to both reflection and absorption, a variety of methods have
been proposed; the most widely applied is the Scattering tion of the fields by considering the induced eddy currents.
Matrix Method (SMM).7,8 These methods primarily consider Another method is an exact solution of the vector wave equa-
the far-field region of the antenna, and this is obviously not tion from which Moser developed an integral expression.
This derived expression was complex, and Moser did not
give the exact SE with this method. A further method is the
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: equivalent transmission line theory of shielding that is also
donglinliu@stu.xidian.edu.cn well known as EM interference (EMI) shielding theory by

1070-664X/2015/22(10)/102106/7/$30.00 22, 102106-1 C 2015 AIP Publishing LLC

V
102106-2 Liu et al. Phys. Plasmas 22, 102106 (2015)

Schelkunoff.13 Moser compares the experimental results
with the eddy current method and the equivalent transmis-
sion line theory, and the results show that the EMI shielding
theory is the most accurate predictor of SE.12 Later,
Bannister simplified Mosers integral expressions, by apply-
ing the quasi-near and near-field approximations, and calcu-
lated SE. Bannisters results also align with the results
obtained with EMI shielding theory.14 As a result of this
literature review, the authors of this present work chose the
EMI shielding theory as a representative method to estimate
SE in the near-field region.
In this paper, we will study the propagation characteris-
tics of EM waves through plasma in the near-field region of
a low frequency loop antenna. The EMI shielding theory is
used to estimate the EM waves attenuation by considering
the plasma as metal. The SE for various plasma parameters
are calculated both in the far-field region by applying SMM
theory and in the near-field region with EMI shielding
theory. The SE in the near-field region is compared with that
in the far-field region, and the variables that influence this
difference are discussed. Experiments are then conducted
with plasma generated by low pressure glow discharge. The
experimental results are compared with the theoretical
results obtained from the two previously described theoreti-
cal approaches. Finally, the SE of low frequency EM waves
during the re-entry phase is calculated. The feasibility of
using a low frequency system to transmit key information to
the HSV during the blackout period is discussed.
II. EM WAVE ATTENUATION THROUGH PLASMA IN
THE NEAR-FIELD REGION OF A LOW FREQUENCY
LOOP ANTENNA
A. Defining the near-field region of a loop antenna and
its adjacent electromagnetic fields
When the circumference of the loop antenna is much
smaller than the EM waves wavelength, the loop antenna
can be equivalent to a magnetic dipole. The electric and
magnetic fields around the loop antenna in spherical coordi-
nates are illustrated in Fig. 1 (Ref. 10)
" #
SI0 ejxtk0 r k03 cos h j2 2 orthogonally to the z direction. L is the shield thickness. The
Hr ; (1)
4p rk0 2 rk0 3
" #
SI0 ejxtk0 r k03 sin h 1 j 1
Hh    ; (2)
4p rk0 rk0 2 rk0 3
" #
jxl0 SI0 ejxtk0 r k02 sin h j 1
E/  ; (3)
4p rk0 rk0 2
where I0 is the current in the loop antenna; S pa2 is the
antennas area; r is the distance to the center of the loop
antenna; x is the EM waves angular frequency; l0 is the
permeability of vacuum; k0 2p/k is the EM waves propa-
gation constant in vacuum; and k is the EM waves wave-
length in vacuum.
According to the dependence of Hh on r by Eq. (2),
three regions can be defined: the near-field region where
r  0.1k/2p (the last component will be dominant and Hh
will exhibit an inverse relationship with r3); the far-field
region where r  10k/2p (the first component will be domi-
nant and Hh will exhibit an inverse relationship with r); and
the transition region where 0.1k/2p < r < 10k/2p (the impact
of all three components is approximately equal). Table I lists
the near- and far-field region for EM waves with different
frequencies. The thickness of the plasma sheath is 420 cm,
the plasma sheath will be in the near-field region of a loop
antenna whose frequency is below 10 MHz. Considering the
fact that the heat shield may be 210 cm thick, this research
will focus on EM waves with frequencies below 1 MHz to
ensure that the plasma sheath is in the near-field region.
When h 90 , Hr 0, and the equivalent wave imped-
ance in the near-field region is described by
E/
Z  jxl0 r: (4)
Hh
B. EMI shielding theory and plasma conductivity at
low frequency
Schelkunoffs EMI shielding theory is based on trans-
mission theory and the SE is defined as
SE 20 log10 jEt =Et0 j 20 log10 jHt =Ht0 j; (5)
where the Et (Ht) and Et0 (Ht0) are the electric (magnetic)
field with and without shielding, respectively.
The model of transmission theory is shown in Fig. 2. An
incident wave (Ei/Hi) penetrates an infinite lamina shield
Z1, Z2, and Z3 are the wave impedance in the left space, shield,
and right space, respectively. The Et (Ht) is obtained by10
Et Ht pekL
; (6)
Ei Hi 1  qe2kL
4Z2 Z3
p ; (7)
Z1 Z2  Z2 Z3

TABLE I. The near-field and far-field region for EM wave with different
frequencies.

f 100 kHz 1 MHz 10 MHz 100MHz 1 GHz

Near-field region <47.7 m <4.77 m <47.7 cm <4.77 cm <0.5 cm

Far-field region >4770 m >477 m >47.7 m >4.77 m >47.7 cm
FIG. 1. The electric and magnetic field around loop antenna.
102106-3 Liu et al. Phys. Plasmas 22, 102106 (2015)

use ve and ve0 to represent the electron collision frequency in

Hz and rad/s, respectively). Comparing Eq. (14) with the
conducting mediums complex relative permittivity (Eq.
(15)), we can obtain the plasmas conductivity (Eq. (16)) and
relative permittivity (Eq. (17))
r
~e r er  j ; (15)
xe0
e2 n v
r  0 e e0 2  ; (16)
me x2 ve0
FIG. 2. Model of transmission theory.
e2 n
er 1   0 e 2 : (17)
Z1  Z2  Z2  Z3 e0 me x2 ve0
q ; (8)
Z1 Z2  Z2 Z3 When x ve0, Eqs. (16) and (17) can be simplified to
where k is the EM waves propagation constant in the shield. e2 ne
Generally, Z1 Z3, so Eqs. (6)(8) can be simplified to r (18)
me ve0
E t Ht 4KekL and
; (9)
Ei Hi K 1  K  12 e2kL
2

e2 ne
where K Z1/Z2. Et0 and Ht0 can be obtained by replacing er 1  : (19)
e0 me v2e0
the shield with air. In the near-field region, Z1 is obtained by
Eq. (4). If the jxe/rj of plasma is much smaller than unity, the
The shield is often made of metal. When jxe/rj (x is the plasmas wave impedance and wave propagation constant
EM waves angular frequency, r is the shields conductivity, can be obtained by substituting Eq. (18) to Eqs. (10) and
and e is the shields permittivity) is much smaller than unity, (11), respectively. The EM waves attenuation through
it can be assumed that the medium performs similarly to plasma in the near-field region of the loop antenna can also
metal.10 The shields wave impedance and wave propagation be obtained with Eqs. (5) and (9).
constants can then be obtained by Eqs. (10) and (11),
respectively, C. Simulation of EM wave attenuation through plasma
in the near-field and far-field region
r
1j xl0 r
Zmetal  (10) Parameters of the plasma sheath enveloping the HSV
r 2 depend on many factors including the vehicle shape, flight
speed, altitude, and attack angle. During a typical re-entry
and
phase of a blunt-nosed vehicle (e.g., RAM-C9), the ne and ve
r
xl0 r around the antenna window at different altitudes are shown
kmetal  1 j : (11) in Fig. 3. The plasma sheath thickness is approximately
2
514 cm from 21 to 76 km. The ne varies from 109 to
When the shield is replaced with air, the wave imped- 1013 cm3 while the ve varies from 0.01 to 50 GHz. For
ance and wave propagation constant will be simplicity, the authors will first consider a uniform plasma
p layer with a thickness of 10 cm to study the general charac-
Zair l0 =e0 (12) teristics of EM wave attenuation. The jxe/rj with ve when
T 2000 K and peak ne at different altitudes are also shown
and in Fig. 3(c). The figure illustrates that the jxe/rj increases as
p the altitude rises above 30 km. When f 100 kHz, the jxe/rj
kair jx l0 e0 : (13)
is much less than unity, but when f 1 MHz, the jxe/rj is
Next, we will derive the plasmas conductivity and close to unity above 60 km. Therefore, the estimated EM
permittivity at low frequency. When neglecting the EM wave attenuation at 1 MHz with the EMI shielding theory
waves interference to plasma, the plasma can be treated as a may deviate further from the real value.
medium with a complex relative permittivity15 The jxe/rj values associated with a variety of ne and ve
values are calculated and shown in Fig. 4. The jxe/rj is
e20 ne 1 approximately 107 to 0.1 for 100 kHz, and approximately
~e r 1   ; (14) 106 to 1 for 1 MHz. For this reason, the plasmas properties
e0 me x2 1  jve0 =x
and performance can be assumed to be equivalent to metal in
where me is the electron mass; ne is the electron density; most conditions, except for low ne when ve 50 GHz or very
e0 1.6  1019 C is the unit charge; and ve0 is the electron low ve. When jxe/rj is close to unity, the estimation error
collision frequency in rad/s (in this manuscript, the authors with the EMI shielding theory may increase. With that said,
102106-4 Liu et al. Phys. Plasmas 22, 102106 (2015)

the EMI shielding theory is still useful for a rough estimation

of SE in the near-field region. SE with different plasma
parameters with the loop antenna 20 cm away from the
plasma are shown in Fig. 5. Shielding effectiveness in the
far-field region with the SMM theory is also shown.
As shown in Fig. 5, the SE trends are the same in
the near- and far-field regions. The SE increases with the
increase of ne, and decreases with the increase of ve.
Shielding effectiveness in the near-field region is less than
that in the far-field region. This is because the reflection loss
in the far-field region is much greater than that in the near-
field region. When ve > 1 GHz, the SE in the near-field
region is less than 30 dB even for the highest ne, where
30 dB is the communication systems allowance based on
engineering estimates. This means that the low frequency
EM wave can effectively penetrate through the plasma
sheath below approximately 40 km (as shown in Fig. 3). The
SE for f 1 MHz is larger than that for f 100 kHz. This
means that the higher the EM wave frequency, the larger the
SE. To penetrate through the plasma sheath more effectively,
a lower frequency system should be chosen, such as the
Loran-C system, whose carrier wave frequency is 100 kHz.16

III. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS

A. Experimental setup
To verify the EMI shielding theorys effectiveness for
plasma in the near-field region of a loop antenna,

FIG. 3. Plasma sheath parameters at different altitudes: (a) ne, (b) ve, and (c)
jxe/rj.

FIG. 5. SE in the near- and far-field region for different plasma parameters:
FIG. 4. jxe/rj for various plasma parameters. (a) f 100 kHz and (b) f 1 MHz.
102106-5 Liu et al. Phys. Plasmas 22, 102106 (2015)

experiments are conducted with plasma generated by low In the experiments, the EM wave strength, P0, when the
pressure glow discharge in a laboratory environment. The plasma generator is off, is first recorded as the reference.
experimental setup is illustrated in Fig. 6. Then, the EM wave strength, P1, is recorded at different
Plasma is generated by glow discharge under low pres- plasma situations. For each plasma situation, an average of
sure within a cylindrical stainless steel vacuum cham- five measurements is taken to reduce the experiments uncer-
ber.1719 On two sides of the vacuum chamber, there are two tainty. The SE is then calculated by
large propagation windows with diameters of approximately
30 cm. The gas discharge occurs between annular stainless SEdB P0 P1 : (21)
helix pipes and the chamber wall. The plasma then diffuses
to the center of the vacuum chamber, forming an 18-cm-
thick large scale uniform plasma layer. The ne is controlled B. Experiment results
by adjusting the power injected into plasma and controlled The experimental results are shown in Fig. 7. The theo-
based on readings from a Langmuir double-probe.19 Because
retical results with both the EMI shielding theory and SMM
the plasma generated in our experiment is a weakly ionized
theory are also included in Fig. 7. In the experiment, the
cold plasma, the ve can be estimated by applying Eq. (20),
pressure, p, is maintained at about 10 Pa; the gas tempera-
based on the essential assumption that the electron collides
ture, T, is approximately 300 K; and the electron tempera-
with the molecules with the arithmetic average speed15
ture, Te, is 5 eV. By substituting these parameters into
r Eq. (20), the collision frequency, ve, is calculated to be
4p 2 15 p e0 T e
ve a0 vNm 6:0  10   ; (20) approximately 200 MHz. The re-entry plasma layer, Te, is
3 kB T 300kB
approximately 0.2 eV. The difference in Te results in the ve
where v (8e0Te/pme)0.5 is the electron arithmetic average varying by a factor of 5 at the same pressure and tempera-
speed; a0 1.2  1010 m is the average radius of air mole- ture. The ve is determined not only by Te but also by gas
cules; Nm p/kBT is the density of the molecules; p is the pressure and temperature; the effect of Te on the SE should
pressure in the vacuum chamber in Pa; T is the gas tempera- be minimal as long as the ve value is comparable.
ture in K; kB 1.38  1023 J/K is Boltzmann constant; and As shown in Fig. 7, the increase in ne does not result in
Te is the electron temperature in eV that is obtained from the a large SE increase in the experimental range of ne. The
Langmuir double-probe. exact SE values are listed in Tables II and III for 100 kHz
The EM wave is generated by an arbitrary wave genera- and 1 MHz, respectively. It is shown that the experimental
tor (AWG3102, Tektronix) and emitted with a small loop results are reasonably consistent with the EMI shielding
antenna with a diameter of 12 cm. The loop antenna is placed theory with an estimated error of less than 0.2 dB (about
about 20 cm away from the plasma layer with its axis parallel 0.3%) for 100 kHz and less than 0.6 dB (about 7.2%) for
to the interface of plasma and air (as shown in Fig. 6). A field 1 MHz. Conversely, the experimental results considerably
strength sensor is placed on the other side of the plasma layer
and connected to the spectrum analyser (N9020A, Agilent).
The field strength sensor is placed in a screening chamber
that is made of a 1-cm-thick copper, so that the field strength
sensor only receives the EM wave through the propagation
windows. The field strength sensor is composed of a ferrite
magnet rod, tuned with a resonant capacitor to the same
frequency as the emitted EM wave. This tuning allows the
sensor to simultaneously increase sensitivity and filter
interference.

FIG. 6. Experimental setup of low frequency EM wave transmission through FIG. 7. Experimental results of low frequency EM wave transmission
plasma. through plasma. ve 200 MHz: (a) f 100 kHz and (b) f 1 MHz.
102106-6 Liu et al. Phys. Plasmas 22, 102106 (2015)

TABLE II. SE of EM wave transmission through plasma (f 100 kHz).
EMI shielding
ne (cm3) Experiment (dB) theory (dB) SMM theory (dB)
1.24  1010 0.002 0.0001 20.39
2.07  1010 0.008 0.0003 24.49
4.60  1010 0.014 0.0012 31.01
7.44  1010 0.018 0.0032 35.12
1.00  1011 0.016 0.0059 37.67
deviate from the results obtained by applying SMM theory
(or SE in the far-field region) by more than 20 dB (about
900%). To verify the experiments validity, the propagation
window was covered with a 0.2-mm-thick copper plate, and
the SE was observed to be larger than 5 dB. This verifies the
experiments credibility. The experiment not only verifies
the effectiveness of the EMI shielding theory in estimating
SE for plasma in the near-field region of the loop antenna, it
also shows that the EM wave attenuation in the near-field
region is much less than that in the far-filed region.
IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
A. Discussion
In the study presented here, EMI shielding theory is
verified as an effective SE estimation approach in the near-
field region for ne values less than 1  1011 cm3. This is
more than two orders of magnitude lower than the maximum
ne during a typical re-entry. The jxe/rj is about 0.0005 when
f 100 kHz and 0.005 when f 1 MHz, so the assumption
that plasma can be assumed to perform comparably to metal
(jxe/rj 1) is validated. For ne values up to 1013 cm3 and
ve > 0.1 GHz, the assumption remains accurate, as shown in
Fig. 4. Similarly, the EMI shielding theory will also be effec-
tive. For other conditions, when the jxe/rj is close to unity,
the estimate error may grow, but EMI shielding theory is still
useful for rough estimations.
In this research, we considered EM waves emitted from
the loop antenna and EM waves received on the other side of
the plasma layer. In reality, the loop antenna is on board
the HSV to receive the EM wave. The duality of these two
configurations can be demonstrated easily. First, consider
the loop antenna on board and the ground antenna as a
two-ended network. According to the reciprocal theorem for
antenna,20 if the medium in the propagation path is linear,
passive, and isotropic, the two parameters S12 and S21 are
identical (where the S12 and S21 are the relative field
received by antenna 1 from antenna 2 and the relative field
received by antenna 2 from antenna 1, respectively). In this
paper, the analysis focuses on the EM waves attenuation by
the plasma sheath, so the antenna on the ground is replaced
by the field strength sensor on the opposite side of the plasma
layer. First, the plasma does not generate EM waves by
itself, that is, the plasma is passive. Second, there is no static
magnetic field in the plasma, so the plasmas e or r are iden-
tical when measured in any direction (i.e., it is isotropic). To
present plasmas non-linear characteristics, the EM waves
electric field must be comparable with or exceed the plasma
field15
r
3me Te 2me  2 
Ep   x v2e0 ; (22)
e0 M
where M is the mass of an ion (mostly NO in plasma
sheath). Typically, the Te around the HSV is about 0.2 eV,
considering ve 1 GHz, the Ep is about 65 V/m for both
100 kHz and 1 MHz. This corresponds to about 60 mW for
plane waves in a square antenna window with side length of
10 cm. The power is much higher than the EM wave power
reaching the HSV, so the plasma sheath is a linear medium
for the considered case. In our experiment, the Te is 5 eV and
the ve 200 MHz, the Ep is then approximately 70 V/m. The
current in the loop antenna is approximately 1 A, and the
electric field is about 0.3 V/m for 100 kHz and 3.5 V/m
for 1 MHz by Eq. (3). Therefore, the reciprocal theorem for
antennas holds in our situation.
Next, an SE estimation is made for the entire re-entry
phase of a RAM-C. For simplicity, the plasma layer is
considered uniform. The ne is chosen to be the peak value to
consider the worst case. The ve is chosen to be the value at
T 2000 K, which is the temperature around the antenna
widow. The ne, ve, and the plasma sheath thickness at differ-
ent altitudes are listed in Table IV. The distance from the
plasma sheath to the center of the loop antenna is 20 cm. As
shown in Fig. 3 (c), for 100 kHz, the assumption jxe/rj 1
holds during the entire re-entry phase, so the EMI shielding
theory is effective, but for 1 MHz, the assumption jxe/rj 1
holds only below 60 km. Above 60 km, the SE is larger than
the EMI shielding theorys projection, but smaller than that
in the far-field region. Fig. 8 includes the simulation results,
along with the theoretical SE obtained from both EMI theory
and SMM theory as a reference.
As shown in Fig. 8, the SE decreases with decrease in
altitude, with the exception of an altitude of 30 km. During
the entire re-entry phase, the SE with EMI shielding theory
is below 10 dB for an EM wave with a frequency of 1 MHz

TABLE III. SE of EM wave transmission through plasma (f 1 MHz). TABLE IV. Typical plasma sheath parameters for RAM-C.

EMI shielding Altitude (km) ne (cm3) ve (GHz) Thickness (cm)

ne (cm3) Experiment (dB) theory (dB) SMM theory (dB) 10
76 4.02  10 0.007 14.0
1.24  1010 0.026 0.009 20.40 62 4.37  1011 0.059 7.8
2.07  1010 0.034 0.026 24.49 53 6.86  1011 0.228 7.0
4.60  1010 0.052 0.122 31.03 40 1.41  1012 1.6 5.0
7.44  1010 0.054 0.312 35.15 30 1.00  1013 7.1 7.0
1.00  1011 0.061 0.553 37.69 21 5.03  1010 27.1 5.2
102106-7 Liu et al.
FIG. 8. SE during the re-entry phase of a RAM-C module.
and below 1 dB for an EM wave with a frequency of 100
kHz. The communication systems allowance on board the
HSV according to engineering guidance is 30 dB,21 so the
SE should be less than 30 dB to maintain normal communi-
cation. Theoretically, during the entire re-entry phase, the
low frequency system with a carrier frequency below 1 MHz
should not be interrupted.
However, several challenges remain to be overcome
before this system can be implemented in real-world HSV
applications. These challenges include the low efficiency of
loop antennas and the lack of a method that can transmit data
with a low frequency system. Fortunately, with the continu-
ing developments of electronic science, the low efficiency of
loop antennas can be compensated with a larger amplifier
gain if the loop antenna is only used to receive the EM wave.
Methods to transmit data with low frequency systems are
also being investigated by some researchers.16 In this paper,
we considered a uniform plasma layer for simplicity, but the
gradients in the plasma sheath density can cause reflections
and further EM wave attenuation. Detailed characterizations
of non-uniform plasma layers will be studied as part of the
future work. Another practical problem is that the iono-
sphere, which exists above 60 km, will reflect the low fre-
quency EM wave.22,23 Therefore, the low frequency system
can only work below 60 km. Fortunately, traditional commu-
nication systems (e.g., GPS) have not encountered the
communication blackout phenomenon above 60 km. There
is a great hope that further investigations and technological
developments will allow researchers to overcome the black-
out phenomenon that occurs during the re-entry phase of an
HSV by combining low frequency systems and traditional
communication systems.
B. Conclusion
For EM waves with a frequency below 1 MHz, the
plasma sheath is in the near-field region if a loop antenna is
used on board the HSV to receive the EM wave. This
research work studied the EM wave attenuation (or SE)
through plasma layer in the near-field region. First, the plas-
mas conductivity was derived, and it was found that when
the EM wave frequency is below 1 MHz, the plasmas char-
acteristics closely match those of metal in most situations of
plasma sheath (ne varies from 109 cm3 to 1013 cm3, and ve
varies from 0.01 to 50 GHz). After this, the EMI shielding
theory was introduced to estimate the SE. Simulations were
Phys. Plasmas 22, 102106 (2015)
completed to assess different plasma parameters. Shielding
effectiveness values in the far-field region based on SMM
theory are also given for comparison. Simulation results
showed that the SE increased with the increase of ne and
decreased with the increase of ve. The SE in the near-field
region is much smaller than that in the far-field region; this
is caused by the decrease of EM reflection at the interface of
plasma and air. Experiments were conducted with glow dis-
charge plasma and the EMI shielding theorys effectiveness
was verified. With the EMI shielding theory, the SE during
the entire re-entry phase of an HSV is calculated, and the
results illustrated that the low frequency EM wave could
effectively penetrate through the plasma sheath. Therefore,
the low frequency system may provide a way for transmit-
ting some key information to the HSV during the communi-
cation blackout period.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work has been supported by the National Basic
Research Program of China under Grant No.
2014CB340204, and by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 61301173 and
61473228.
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