Advances and Open Problems in Backscatter Networking

Abstract

Despite significant research in backscatter communication over the past decade, key technical open problems remain underexplored. Here, we first systematically lay out the design space for backscatter networking and identify applications that make backscatter an attractive communication primitive. We then identify 10 research problems that remain to be solved in backscatter networking. These open problems span across the network stack to include circuits, embedded systems, physical layer, MAC and network protocols as well as applications. We believe that addressing these problems can help deliver on backscatter's promise of low-power ubiquitous connectivity.