On limits of constructive interference in backscatter systems

Abstract

Backscatter communication reduces the energy consumption of resource-constrained sensors and actuators by several orders of magnitude as it avoids the resource-consuming need to generate a radio wave. Many backscatter systems and applications suffer from low communication range. By exploiting the collective power of several tags that transmit the same data simultaneously, constructive interference may help to remedy this problem and increase the communication range. When several tags backscatter the same signal simultaneously it is not necessarily true that constructive interference occurs. As our theoretical results and previous work indicate the interference might also be destructive. Our experimental results on real hardware suggest that exploiting constructive interference to increase the communication range requires careful coordination which is difficult in decentralized settings.