research-article

Content-agnostic backscatter from thin air

Authors:

Wei GongAuthors Info & Claims

MobiSys '22: Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services

Pages 343 - 356

https://doi.org/10.1145/3498361.3538930

Published: 27 June 2022 Publication History

Abstract

We present CAB, a content-agnostic backscatter system that can demodulate both tag and ambient data from ambient backscattered WiFi alone. In contrast to prior ambient backscatter systems that use ambient data (content) as tag-data carriers, we focus on zero-subcarriers, which are invariant and independent for any ambient OFDM WiFi. The idea of using zero-subcarriers to convey tag data is simple and elegant. Not only does it for the first time remove the dependency of tag-data demodulation on ambient data, but it also significantly improves the practicality of ambient backscatter.

We prototype CAB using off-the-shelf FPGAs and SDRs. Extensive experiments show CAB is universal as it can work with multi-band, multi-stream, and multi-user ambient traffic, including WiFi 3/4/5/6. CAB is also high-performing since it can deliver 340.9 Mbps aggregate throughput, reaching 97% Shannon capacity. Since CAB is general, we extend it to leverage ambient LTE traffic as excitations, and the achieved tag-data BER is below 0.002%. As the first content-agnostic backscatter that delivers near Shannon-capacity throughput, we believe CAB takes a curial step forward on ubiquitous battery-free IoTs.

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Cited By

Wang SYan YHan FTian YDing YYang PLi XOkoshi TKo JLiKamWa R(2024)MultiRider: Enabling Multi-Tag Concurrent OFDM Backscatter by Taming In-band InterferenceProceedings of the 22nd Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services10.1145/3643832.3661862(292-303)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643832.3661862
Mei LYin ZWang SZhou XLing THe T(2024)ECRLoRa: LoRa Packet Recovery under Low SNR via Edge–Cloud CollaborationACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/360493620:2(1-25)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3604936
Gong WLiu JWu WGong WLiu JWu W(2024)Concurrent Backscatter for Smart LogisticsPractical Backscatter Communication for the Internet of Things10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_5(77-97)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_5
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Index Terms

Content-agnostic backscatter from thin air
1. Networks
  1. Network architectures
    1. Network design principles
  2. Network types
    1. Cyber-physical networks
      1. Sensor networks

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cover image ACM Conferences

MobiSys '22: Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services

June 2022

668 pages

ISBN:9781450391856

DOI:10.1145/3498361

General Chairs:
Nirupama Bulusu
Portland State University
,
Ehsan Aryafar
Portland State University
,
Program Chairs:
Aruna Balasubramanian
Stony Brook University
,
Junehwa Song
KAIST

Copyright © 2022 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 27 June 2022

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National Natural Science Foundation of China

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MobiSys '22

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MobiSys '22: The 20th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services

June 27 - July 1, 2022

Oregon, Portland

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Overall Acceptance Rate 274 of 1,679 submissions, 16%

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Cited By

Wang SYan YHan FTian YDing YYang PLi XOkoshi TKo JLiKamWa R(2024)MultiRider: Enabling Multi-Tag Concurrent OFDM Backscatter by Taming In-band InterferenceProceedings of the 22nd Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services10.1145/3643832.3661862(292-303)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643832.3661862
Mei LYin ZWang SZhou XLing THe T(2024)ECRLoRa: LoRa Packet Recovery under Low SNR via Edge–Cloud CollaborationACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/360493620:2(1-25)Online publication date: 9-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3604936
Gong WLiu JWu WGong WLiu JWu W(2024)Concurrent Backscatter for Smart LogisticsPractical Backscatter Communication for the Internet of Things10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_5(77-97)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_5
Gong WLiu JWu WGong WLiu JWu W(2024)Cross-Technology Backscatter for Smart Health MonitoringPractical Backscatter Communication for the Internet of Things10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_4(59-75)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_4
Gong WLiu JWu WGong WLiu JWu W(2024)Spectrum-Efficient Backscatter for Smart HomesPractical Backscatter Communication for the Internet of Things10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_3(37-58)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_3
Gong WLiu JWu WGong WLiu JWu W(2024)Reliable Backscatter for Remote Physical Condition MonitoringPractical Backscatter Communication for the Internet of Things10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_2(15-36)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_2
Gong WLiu JWu WGong WLiu JWu W(2024)IntroductionPractical Backscatter Communication for the Internet of Things10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_1(1-14)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-59254-6_1
Jiang MGong W(2023)Dances with Blues: Harnessing Multi-Frequency Carriers for Commodity Bluetooth BackscatterProceedings of the ACM on Networking10.1145/36291331:CoNEXT3(1-20)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3629133
Chen SGong WLiu JWang ZZhao J(2023)Interference-Aware Mobile Backscatter Communication: A PHY-Assisted Rate Adaptive ApproachIEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing10.1109/TMC.2022.321453322:12(7498-7508)Online publication date: 3-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TMC.2022.3214533
Wu WHawbani AGong W(2023)Ortho-CodeA: Orthogonal Codes Assisted Backscatter Multiple Access2023 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom)10.1109/PERCOM56429.2023.10099216(171-179)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2023
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