Large-Scale Wireless-Powered Networks With Backscatter Communications—A Comprehensive Survey

Abstract

Massive and ubiquitous deployment of devices in networks of fifth generation (5G) and beyond wireless has necessitated the development of ultra-low-power wireless communication paradigms. Recently, wireless-powered networks with backscatter communications (WPN-BCs) has been emerged as a most prominent technology for enabling large-scale selfsustainable wireless networks with the capabilities of RF energy harvesting (EH) and of extreme low power consumption. Therefore, we provide a comprehensive literature review on the fundamentals, challenges and the on-going research efforts in the domain of WPN-BCs. Our emphasis is on large-scale networks. In particular, we discuss signal processing aspects, network design issues and efficient communication techniques. Moreover, we review emerging technologies for WPN-BCs to bring about the best use of resources. Some applications of this innovative technology are also highlighted. Finally, we address some open research problems and future research directions.

Optimal tag selection scheme for a backscatter communication system over the independent but not necessarily identically distributed Rayleigh fading channels

“…. , N) is uniformly distributed in [3,5] m. The simulation results match the analytical results very well in the whole SNR regime for the proposed optimal tag selection scheme. It is found that the curves are falling faster with the increasing of the number of tags, which corroborates the analysis for the diversity order.…”

Survey of Decentralized Solutions with Mobile Devices for User Location Tracking, Proximity Detection, and Contact Tracing in the COVID-19 Era

“…• Improved signal processing at the transmitter side, for example, by the optimized power amplifier to obtain high efficiency at low transmit power levels [166]; • Improved signal processing at the receiver side-the authors of [31] used, for example, dynamic modeling via Markov chains for more efficient integration of sensors readings for positioning; • Improved communications and/or localization protocols for example by optimized routing of the events or packets [167]; • Ultra low-power communication technologies: low-power technologies, such as BLE, ZigBee, LoRa, etc., are essential for a lasting battery life, but decreasing even more the power consumption is a topic of active research under the umbrella of "ultra low-power" technologies such as wireless-powered networks with back-scattered communications [168], tunable impulse radio UWB technologies [169], or wearable technologies relying on sensors which use the electrostatic induction current generated by human motion [170]; • Data compression methods for transmitting a lower amount of data by removing redundancies in data to be transmitted -while such methods have been vastly studied in the context of wireless communications, e.g., in [171] or via compressed sensing in [85], their applicability to user tracking and contact tracing is still to be determined; • Approximate computing methods rely on trading accuracy for a lower power consumption [172], for example, by reducing the number of quantization bits of by approximating some tasks in the execution flow; • Task offloading methods [173] rely on delegating/moving some of the more computationally demanding tasks to an edge or cloud server; such methods typically demand the presence of a centralized unit/server and therefore are not well suited to decentralized approaches. In addition, task offloading increases the wireless transmission delays and may hinder a real-time contact-tracing app's viability.…”

RF Impairments in Wireless Transceivers: Phase Noise, CFO, and IQ Imbalance – A Survey

“…For these reasons, these nodes can operate with ultra-low powers and low cost. Thus, ambient backscatter communication is a potential candidate for future low-energy communication systems, e.g., IoT networks [586], [587].…”