A Portable Very Low Frequency (VLF) 2FSK Signal Receiving Antenna Based on Magnetoelectric Cantilever

High conductive environments such as deep earth and seawater bring challenges to existing electronic communication technology. Very Low Frequency (VLF) communication technology is supposed to be a feasible solution for conductive environments communication due to its improved radiation attenuation. Herein, we report a VLF 2 Frequency Shift Keying (2FSK) signal receiving antenna based on Metglas/0.7Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -0.3PbTiO 3 (PMN-PT) magnetoelectric (ME) cantilever. The cantilever beam is predicted by finite element simulation and shows double electromechanical resonance (EMR) peaks. Experimental results reveal that the ME cantilever demonstrate strong resonant ME coupling coefficients as high as α Q ⁓ 100 nC/Oe at 6 kHz and 18 kHz, which ensures the high responsivity and low bit error rate during modulation in FSK communication application. The noise equivalent magnetic field of the whole antenna system at the resonant peak is measured to be as low as 12.56 fT/Hz 1/2 (at 18.44 kHz), implying a huge signal to noise ratio (SNR) advantage. On the basis of the above preparation, the ability of ME antenna to receive 2FSK signal is verified. ME antenna shows good performance on demonstrate FSK signals reception which is 200 bit/s. Such an ME composite based mechanical antenna shows great potential in the conductive environmental communication application.