Aaron N. Parks

Ambient backscatter: wireless communication out of thin air

We present the design of a communication system that enables two devices to communicate using ambient RF as the only source of power. Our approach leverages existing TV and cellular transmissions to eliminate the need for wires and batteries, thus enabling ubiquitous communication where devices can communicate among themselves at unprecedented scales and in locations that were previously inaccessible. To achieve this, we introduce ambient backscatter, a new communication primitive where devices communicate by backscattering ambient RF signals. Our design avoids the expensive process of generating radio waves; backscatter communication is orders of magnitude more power-efficient than traditional radio communication. Further, since it leverages the ambient RF signals that are already around us, it does not require a dedicated power infrastructure as in traditional backscatter communication. To show the feasibility of our design, we prototype ambient backscatter devices in hardware and achieve information rates of 1 kbps over distances of 2.5 feet and 1.5 feet, while operating outdoors and indoors respectively. We use our hardware prototype to implement proof-of-concepts for two previously infeasible ubiquitous communication applications.

Wi-fi backscatter: internet connectivity for RF-powered devices

RF-powered computers are small devices that compute and communicate using only the power that they harvest from RF signals. While existing technologies have harvested power from ambient RF sources (e.g., TV broadcasts), they require a dedicated gateway (like an RFID reader) for Internet connectivity. We present Wi-Fi Backscatter, a novel communication system that bridges RF-powered devices with the Internet. Specifically, we show that it is possible to reuse existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide Internet connectivity to RF-powered devices. To show Wi-Fi Backscatters feasibility, we build a hardware prototype and demonstrate the first communication link between an RF-powered device and commodity Wi-Fi devices. We use off-the-shelf Wi-Fi devices including Intel Wi-Fi cards, Linksys Routers, and our organizations Wi-Fi infrastructure, and achieve communication rates of up to 1 kbps and ranges of up to 2.1 meters. We believe that this new capability can pave the way for the rapid deployment and adoption of RF-powered devices and achieve ubiquitous connectivity via nearby mobile devices that are Wi-Fi enabled.

Wi-Fi backscatter

RF-powered computers are small devices that compute and communicate using only the power that they harvest from RF signals. While existing technologies have harvested power from ambient RF sources (e.g., TV broadcasts), they require a dedicated gateway (like an RFID reader) for Internet connectivity. We present Wi-Fi Backscatter, a novel communication system that bridges RF-powered devices with the Internet. Specifically, we show that it is possible to reuse existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide Internet connectivity to RF-powered devices. To show Wi-Fi Backscatters feasibility, we build a hardware prototype and demonstrate the first communication link between an RF-powered device and commodity Wi-Fi devices. We use off-the-shelf Wi-Fi devices including Intel Wi-Fi cards, Linksys Routers, and our organizations Wi-Fi infrastructure, and achieve communication rates of up to 1 kbps and ranges of up to 2.1 meters. We believe that this new capability can pave the way for the rapid deployment and adoption of RF-powered devices and achieve ubiquitous connectivity via nearby mobile devices that are Wi-Fi enabled.

Turbocharging ambient backscatter communication

Communication primitives such as coding and multiple antenna processing have provided significant benefits for traditional wireless systems. Existing designs, however, consume significant power and computational resources, and hence cannot be run on low complexity, power constrained backscatter devices. This paper makes two main contributions: (1) we introduce the first multi-antenna cancellation design that operates on backscatter devices while retaining a small form factor and power footprint, (2) we introduce a novel coding mechanism that enables long range communication as well as concurrent transmissions and can be decoded on backscatter devices. We build hardware prototypes of the above designs that can be powered solely using harvested energy from TV and solar sources. The results show that our designs provide benefits for both RFID and ambient backscatter systems: they enable RFID tags to communicate directly with each other at distances of tens of meters and through multiple walls. They also increase the communication rate and range achieved by ambient backscatter systems by 100X and 40X respectively. We believe that this paper represents a substantial leap in the capabilities of backscatter communication.

WISPCam: A battery-free RFID camera

Energy-scavenging devices with general-purpose microcontrollers can support arbitrarily complex sensing tasks in theory, but in practice, energy limitations impose severe constraints on the application space. Richer sensing such as image capture would enable many new applications to take advantage of energy scavenging. Richer sensing faces two key challenges: efficiently retaining the necessary amount of harvested energy, and storing and communicating large units of sensor data. This paper presents the WISPCam, a passive UHF RFID camera tag based on the Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform that overcomes these two challenges to support reliable image capture and transmission while powered by an RFID reader. The WISPCam uses a novel charge-storage scheme designed specifically to match the image sensors needs. This scheme optimally balances capacitance and leakage to improve the sensitivity and efficiency of the power harvester. The WISPCam also uses a novel data storage and communication scheme to reliably support the transfer of complete images to an RFID reader application. The WISPCam makes battery-free image capture practical for applications such as mechanical gauge reading and surveillance, both demonstrated in this paper, and opens the door to richer sensing applications on battery-free devices.

Photovoltaic enhanced UHF RFID tag antennas for dual purpose energy harvesting

The most significant barrier to improving passive RFID tag performance for both fixed function ID tags and enhanced RFID tags is the limitation on the amount of power that can be harvested for operation. This paper presents a novel approach for incorporating solar harvesting capability into existing passive RFID tags without increasing the parts count or changing the tag assembly process. Our approach employs the tags antenna as a dual function element in which the antenna simultaneously harvests RF energy, communicates with the RFID reader, and harvests solar energy for auxiliary power. This is accomplished by using low cost, printable photovoltaics deposited on flexible substrate to form part of the antennas radiating structure. Several prototype UHF RFID antennas are demonstrated using commercially available thin film, amorphous solar cells. To quantify the improvement in tag performance, Intels WISP was used as an initial test vehicle. The effective read range of the tag was increased by six times and exceeded the readers sensitivity limitations. Additionally, the new antenna allowed for sensing and computing operations to take place independent of the RFID reader under typical office lighting conditions.

Wirelessly powered bistable display tags

Paper displays have a number of attractive properties, in particular the ability to present visual information perpetually with no power source. However, they are not digitally updatable or re-usable. Bistable display materials, such as e-paper, promise to enable displays with the best properties of both paper and electronic displays. However, rewriting a pixelated bistable display requires substantial energy, both for communication and for setting the pixel states. This paper describes a bistable display tag that, from an energy standpoint, is capable of perpetual operation. A commercial off-the-shelf NFC-enabled phone generates RF signals carrying both the information and energy necessary to update the display. After the update is complete, the display continues to present the information with no further power input. We present one example implementation, a companion display for a mobile phone that can be used to capture and preserve a screenshot. We also discuss other potential applications of energy neutral bistable display tags.

Sifting through the airwaves: Efficient and scalable multiband RF harvesting

Harvesting ambient RF power is attractive as a means to operate microelectronics without wires, batteries, or even a dedicated RFID reader. However, most previous ambient RF harvesters have been narrowband, making mobile sensing scenarios infeasible: an RF harvester tuned to work in one city will not generally work in another, as the spectral environments tend to differ. This paper presents a novel approach to multiband harvesting. A single wideband antenna is followed by several narrowband rectifier chains. Each rectifier chain consists of a bandpass filter, a tuned impedance matching network, and a rectifier. The outputs of the rectifiers are combined via a novel diode summation network that enables good performance even when only a subset of the narrowband harvesters is excited. These techniques make ambient RF harvesting feasible for mobile applications. The techniques can potentially enable applications such as ambient RF-powered data logging sensors that upload data to RFID readers when in range.

Wireless Ambient Radio Power

Radio frequency (RF) signals provide a near ubiquitous energy source due to the large number of TV, radio, cellular, and Wi-Fi transmitters throughout our urban environments. While the traditional use of RF signals is for data transfer, it is possible to harvest, convert, and store the energy in these signals for use in a variety of applications. In general, the energy harvesting process includes four stages: excitation of current in an antenna by an incident electromagnetic wave, recti?cation of the resulting power at the antenna output, conversion of this power to optimal voltage and current levels, and ?nally, energy storage in a capacitor or battery for later use. This chapter describes a sensor node that is powered by UHF television broadcast signals. The sensor node transmits the measured data wirelessly over a short distance using a IEEE 802.15.4 radio. Typically broadcast television signals are considered to be sources of information, but this chapter demonstrates that these ubiquitous ambient signals can be used as a power source to do non-trivial work.

Wisent: Robust downstream communication and storage for computational RFIDs

Computational RFID (CRFID) devices are emerging platforms that can enable perennial computation and sensing by eliminating the need for batteries. Although much research has been devoted to improving upstream (CRFID to RFID reader) communication rates, the opposite direction has so far been neglected, presumably due to the difficulty of guaranteeing fast and error-free transfer amidst frequent power interruptions of CRFID. With growing interest in the market where CRFIDs are forever-embedded in many structures, it is necessary for this void to be filled. Therefore, we propose Wisent - a robust downstream communication protocol for CRFIDs that operates on top of the legacy UHF RFID communication protocol: EPC C1G2. The novelty of Wisent is its ability to adaptively change the frame length sent by the reader, based on the length throttling mechanism, to minimize the transfer times at varying channel conditions. We present an implementation of Wisent for the WISP 5 and an off-the-shelf RFID reader. Our experiments show that Wisent allows transfer up to 16 times faster than a baseline, non-adaptive shortest frame case, i.e. single word length, at sub-meter distance. As a case study, we show how Wisent enables wireless CRFID reprogramming, demonstrating the worlds first wirelessly reprogrammable (software defined) CRFID.