BUZZ: Efficient and Reliable Low-Power Backscatter Networks
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overview
There is a long-standing vision of embedding
backscatter nodes like RFIDs into everyday objects to build ultralow
power ubiquitous networks. A major problem that has challenged
this vision is that backscatter communication is neither reliable
nor efficient. Backscatter nodes cannot sense each other, and
hence tend to suffer from colliding transmissions. Further, they are
ineffective at adapting the bit rate to channel conditions, and thus
miss opportunities to increase throughput, or transmit above capacity
causing errors.
This paper introduces a new approach to backscatter communication.
The key idea is to treat all nodes as if they were a single virtual
sender. One can then view collisions as a code across the bits transmitted
by the nodes. By ensuring only a few nodes collide at any
time, we make collisions act as a sparse code and decode them using
a new customized compressive sensing algorithm. Further, we
can make these collisions act as a rateless code to automatically
adapt the bit rate to channel quality –i.e., nodes can keep colliding
until the base station has collected enough collisions to decode.
Results from a network of backscatter nodes communicating with
a USRP backscatter base station demonstrate that the new design
produces a 3.5× throughput gain, and due to its rateless code, reduces
message loss rate in challenging scenarios from 50% to zero.
papers
BUZZ: Efficient and Reliable Low-Power Backscatter Networks
Jue Wang, Haitham Hassanieh, Dina Katabi, and Piotr Indyk
ACM SIGCOMM, 2012.
people
Jue Wang
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Haitham Al Hassanieh
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dina Katabi
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Piotr Indyk
Massachusetts Institute of Technology