Manchester Encoding for Non-coherent Detection of Ambient Backscatter in Time-Selective Fading

TL;DR

This paper analyzes Manchester encoding for ambient backscatter communication, demonstrating its BER advantages and SNR gains over traditional modulation schemes in non-coherent, time-selective fading environments.

Contribution

It introduces Manchester encoding at the transmitter for ambient backscatter, showing its optimal decision rule is parameter-independent and improves BER performance.

Findings

Manchester encoding achieves SNR gain over OOK in backscatter systems.

Optimal decision rule for Manchester encoding is independent of system parameters.

System can operate effectively without channel state information.

Abstract

Simplifying the detection procedure and improving the bit error rate (BER) performance of a non-coherent receiver in ambient backscatter is vital for enhancing its ability to function without the channel state information (CSI). In this work, we analyze the BER performance of Manchester encoding which is implemented at the transmitter for data transmission, and demonstrate that the optimal decision rule is independent of the system parameters. Further, through extensive numerical results, it is shown that the ambient backscatter system can achieve a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain with Manchester encoding compared to the commonly used uncoded direct on-off keying (OOK) modulation, when used in conjunction with a multi-antenna receiver employing the direct-link cancellation.