Ambient backscatter communications using LTE cell specific reference signals

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel ambient backscatter communication system leveraging LTE Cell Specific Reference Signals, demonstrating practical feasibility through experimental validation.

Contribution

It introduces a new method for backscatter modulation using LTE CRS and provides experimental evidence of its practicality.

Findings

Successful channel estimation using LTE CRS

Effective backscatter modulation demonstrated

Practical feasibility confirmed through experiments

Abstract

Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems provide ubiquitous coverage for mobile communications, which makes it a promising candidate to be used as a signal source in the ambient backscatter communications. In this paper, we propose a system in which a backscatter device modulates the ambient LTE signal by changing its reflection coefficient and the receiver uses the LTE Cell Specific Reference Signals (CRS) to estimate the channel and demodulates the backscattered signal from the obtained channel impulse response estimates. We first outline the overall system, discuss the receiver operation, and then provide experimental evidence on the practicality of the proposed system.