Intelligently Wireless Batteryless RF-Powered Reconfigurable Surface

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel reconfigurable surface using low-cost RFID tags powered and controlled wirelessly, with theoretical optimization and experimental validation, highlighting performance limits due to weak backscatter links.

Contribution

It introduces a practical design and prototype for a wireless, batteryless, RF-powered reconfigurable surface using commodity RFID tags, with an optimal configuration algorithm.

Findings

Optimal element configuration with polynomial complexity

Proof-of-concept prototype demonstrating feasibility

Performance limited by weak backscatter links

Abstract

This work exploits commodity, ultra-low cost, commercial radio frequency identification tags (RFID) as the elements of a reconfigurable surface. Such batteryless tags are powered and controlled by a software-defined (SDR) reader, with properly modified software, so that a source-destination link is assisted, operating at a different carrier frequency. In terms of theory, the optimal gain and corresponding best element configuration is offered, with tractable polynomial complexity (instead of exponential) in number of elements. In terms of practice, a concrete way to design and prototype a wireless, batteryless, RF-powered, reconfigurable surface is offered and a proof-of-concept is experimentally demonstrated. It is also found that even with perfect channel estimation, the weak nature of backscattered links limits the performance gains, even for large number of surface elements. Impact of channel estimation errors is also studied. Future extensions at various carrier frequencies could be directly accommodated, through simple modifications in the antenna and matching network of each RFID tag/surface element.