Towards scalable backscatter sensor mesh with decodable relay and distributed excitation
Jia Zhao, Wei Gong, Jiangchuan Liu
Abstract
Backscatter communication, in which data is conveyed through reflecting excitation signals, has been advocated as a promising green technology for Internet of Things (IoT). Existing backscatter solutions however are mostly centralized, relying on a single excitation source, typically within one hop. Though recent works have demonstrated the viability of multi-hop backscatter, the excitation signal remains centralized, which attenuates quickly and fundamentally limits the communication scope. For long-range and high-quality communication, distributed excitations are expected and also naturally available as ambient signals (WiFi, BLE, cellular, FM, light, sound, etc.), albeit not being explored for boosting nearby tags for relaying.