Theoretical Limits of Backscatter Communications

TL;DR

This paper derives theoretical bounds on data rates and transmission ranges for backscatter communication systems, providing insights into their capabilities for IoT applications based on classical information theory.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes the achievable data rates and ranges of backscatter communication using theoretical bounds, considering various parameters and configurations.

Findings

Derived bounds for mono-static and bi-static configurations

Analyzed impact of distance, frequency, and power on data rates

Provided feasibility insights for IoT use-cases

Abstract

Backscatter communication is a hot candidate for future IoT systems. It offers the possibility for connectivity with tiny amounts of energy that can be easily obtained from energy harvesting. This is possible as backscatter devices do not actively transmit electromagnetic waves. Instead they only reflect existing electromagnetic waves by changing the antenna load. This fact leads to significant differences compared to classical communication wrt. the modulation schemes and achievable data rates. However, to our best knowledge nobody has so far systematically analyzed the achievable data rates and transmit ranges for different parameter configurations. Within this paper we derive theoretical bounds for backscatter communications based on classical information theory. We then use these bounds to analyze how different parameters - e.g. the distance, the frequency, or the transmit power - affect the achievable data rates. The bounds are derived for mono-static configuration, as well as for bi-static configurations. This allows feasibility analyses for different use-cases that are currently discussed in 3GPP and IEEE 802.