BitSurfing: Wireless Communications with Outsourced Symbol Generation

TL;DR

BitSurfing introduces a novel wireless communication architecture for nano-IoT that eliminates traditional packet transmission by outsourcing symbol generation, enabling battery-less, event-driven, collision-free operation with high reliability.

Contribution

This work presents the first network adapter architecture that relies on external symbol generation, reducing power consumption and enabling perpetual nano-IoT operation.

Findings

Achieves nearly-perfect packet delivery rates in simulations

Operates without medium access control and is event-driven

Supports battery-less, perpetual operation in nano-IoT networks

Abstract

Nano-IoT enables a wide range of ground-breaking technologies, but face implementation challenges due to the extremity of the scale. Space restrictions pose severe power supply considerations, to the point where just a few packet transmissions are sufficient to deplete state-of-the-art supplies. In turn, this translates to difficulties in developing efficient protocols even for basic operations, such as addressing and routing. The present work proposes a new network adapter architecture that can address these challenges. The BitSurfing adapter does not generate packets and, hence, abolishes the need for the corresponding transmission circuitry and power consumption. Instead, it relies on an external symbol generator. The BitSurfing adapter reads incoming symbols, waiting for intended messages to appear in the symbol stream. A short (1-bit), low-energy pulse is then emitted to notify neighboring nodes. BitSurfing adapters are shown to exhibit perpetual (and even battery-less) operation, ability to operate without medium access control, while being completely transparent to applications. Moreover, their operation is event-driven, allowing for clock-less implementations. The new adapters are evaluated in a simulated multi-hop nano-IoT network and are shown to offer nearly-perfect packet delivery rates and practically no collisions, under any congestion level.