Backscatter Communication Solutions for Ubiquitous Sensing

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2022Backscatter communication suggests a low-cost solution to connect billions of devices through wireless signals and realize the vision of the Internet Of Things (IoT). However, due to challenges such as deployment complexity, reliability, and scalability, the promise of ubiquitous backscatter connectivity has eluded us. In this writing, I suggest three solutions to address these challenges and enable widespread backscatter connectivity.First, I introduce "Full-Duplex LoRa Backscatter" a low-cost, long-range monostatic backscatter solution that simplifies the deployment of low-cost backscatter systems. Next, I explain "Relacks" a bistatic backscatter system compatible with the BLE standard that exploits frequency and antenna diversity and a closed-loop design to deliver reliable backscatter coverage. Finally, I propose "MultiScatter", the first multistatic backscatter network for battery-free sensing, where a network of multiple receivers and transmitters base units are employed to deliver backscatter connectivity to many battery-free sensor nodes over a wide area