The New Era of Long-Range “Zero-Interception” Ambient Backscattering Systems: 130 m with 130 nA Front-End Consumption

Spyridion-Nektarios Daskalakis, Apostolos Georgiadis, Manos M. Tentzeris, George Goussetis, George Deligeorgis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
17 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Internet-of-Things applications based on backscatter radio principles have appeared to address the limitations of high cost and high power consumption. While radio-frequency identification (RFID) sensor nodes are among the most commonly utilized state-of-the-art technologies, their range for passive implementations is typically short and well below 10 m being impractical for “rugged” applications where approaching the tag at such proximity, is not convenient or safe. In this work, we propose a long-range “zero interception” ambient backscatter (LoRAB) communication system relying on low power sensor (tag) deployments. Without employing a dedicated radio transmission, our technology enables the “zero interception” communication of the tags with portable receivers over hundreds of meters. This enables low-cost and low-power communications across a wide range of missions by using chirp spread spectrum (CSS) modulation on ambient FM signals. A laboratory prototype exploiting commercial components (laptops, DAQ, software-defined radios (SDR) platform) have demonstrated the potential by achieving 130 m tag-to-reader distance for a low bit rate of 88 bps with the modulator current consumption at around 103 nA.
Original languageEnglish
Article number4151
JournalSensors
Volume22
Issue number11
Early online date30 May 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2022

Keywords

  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • backscatter communication
  • low power communications
  • radio frequency (RF) identification (RFID) sensors
  • software defined radios (SDRs)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Information Systems
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Biochemistry
  • Instrumentation
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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