ZTE Communications ›› 2024, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (1): 16-23.DOI: 10.12142/ZTECOM.202401003

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Link Budget and Enhanced Communication Distance for Ambient Internet of Things

YANG Yibing1, LIU Ming1(), XU Rongtao2, WANG Gongpu1, GONG Wei3   

  1. 1.School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
    2.School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
    3.School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
  • Received:2023-12-02 Online:2024-03-28 Published:2024-03-28
  • About author:YANG Yibing received her BS degree from Anhui University, China in 2022. She is currently working toward her PhD degree with the School of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, China. Her research interests include mobile and Internet networks
    LIU Ming (mingliu@bjtu.edu.cn) received his BE and ME degrees in electrical engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and PhD degree in electrical engineering from the National Institute of Applied Sciences, France in 2011. He was with the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications of Rennes, France, as a postdoctoral researcher from 2011 to 2015. He is currently with Beijing Jiaotong University, China, as an associate professor. His main research interests include beyond 5G/6G, PHY security, and AI for wireless communications.
    XU Rongtao received his BS degree in radio technology from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China in 1997, MS degree in communication and information system from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China in 2000, and PhD degree in electronic and information engineering from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China in 2007. From 2000 to 2003, he was a system engineer at Siemens Ltd., China. In 2007, he joined Beijing Jiaotong University, China, where he is currently an associate professor with the State Key Laboratory of Rail Traffic Control and Safety. His research interests include wideband mobile communications, railway communications, and wireless sensor networks.
    WANG Gongpu received his BE degree in communication engineering from Anhui University, China in 2001, MS degree from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China in 2004, and the PhD degree from University of Alberta, Canada in 2011. From 2004 to 2007, he was an assistant professor at the School of Network Education, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He is currently a full professor with the School of Computer and Information Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, China. His research interests include wireless communication theory, signal processing technologies, and the Internet of Things.
    GONG Wei received his BE degree in computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, and ME degree in software engineering and PhD degree in computer science from Tsinghua University, China. He is a professor with the School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China. He had also conducted research with Simon Fraser University, Canada, and the University of Ottawa, Canada. His current research interests include wireless networks, Internet of Things, and distributed computing.
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(61971029);Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation(L222002)

Abstract:

Backscatter communications will play an important role in connecting everything for beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G systems. One open challenge for backscatter communications is that the signals suffer a round-trip path loss so that the communication distance is short. In this paper, we first calculate the communication distance upper bounds for both uplink and downlink by measuring the tag sensitivity and reflection coefficient. It is found that the activation voltage of the envelope detection diode of the downlink tag is the main factor limiting the backscatter communication distance. Based on this analysis, we then propose to implement a low-noise amplifier (LNA) module before the envelope detection at the tag to enhance the incident signal strength. Our experimental results on the hardware platform show that our method can increase the downlink communication range by nearly 20 m.

Key words: ambient IoT (AIoT), B5G, backscatter communication, link budget, low-noise amplifier (LNA), Release 19, tag chip sensitivity, upper bounds