Prototype Implementation and Experimental Evaluation for LoRa-Backscatter Communication Systems with RF Energy Harvesting and Low Power Management

作     者：Tang, Xiaoqing Liu, Xin Xie, Guihui Cui, Yongqiang Li, Dong 

作者机构：Hubei University School of Artificial Intelligence Wuhan China Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Intelligent Sensing System and Security Hubei University Wuhan China Wuhan Qingchuan University Institute of Electronic Information Wuhan China  School of Automation Wuhan China South-Central Minzu University College of Electronics and Information Engineering Wuhan China Macau University of Science and Technology School of Computer Science and Engineering Avenida Wai Long Taipa Macau China 

出 版 物：《IEEE Transactions on Communications》 (IEEE Trans Commun)

年 卷 期：2024年

核心收录：

学科分类：0810[工学-信息与通信工程] 0808[工学-电气工程] 0809[工学-电子科学与技术（可授工学、理学学位）] 08[工学] 0811[工学-控制科学与工程] 

主　　题：Mobile telecommunication systems 

摘      要：Battery free Internet of Things (BF IoT), which is realized by harvesting ambient energy to power the IoT devices, has many advantages such as low power, low cost, free-maintenance, easy deployment, and environmental protection. As the two key enabling technologies of BF IoT, the integration of energy harvesting, management and backscatter communication (BackCom) is expected to meet practical applications. However, several fundamental issues need to be addressed to fully develop the potential of such integration. In this paper, we propose an ultra-low power energy harvesting and management scheme that effectively reduces the startup and quiescent power consumption. In the case of extremely limited energy harvested, the Long Range (LoRa) BackCom digital waveform generation algorithm with ultra-low power consumption and low complexity is studied, which can support low-power and low-cost micro-controllers (MCUs). Then, a radio frequency (RF) front-end scheme that is compatible with RF energy harvesting (RFEH), BackCom, and On-Off-Keying (OOK) receiving is proposed. On this basis, we design and implement a fully functional BF LoRa Tag, which integrates tag antennas, LoRa BackCom, low-power OOK receiving, multi-parameter real-time sensing, RFEH and management, at a cost of only $6. Our test results show that the BF LoRa Tag can be self-powered by harvesting the RF energy as low as -19 dBm, with the cold-start power as low as 280 nW, the quiescent power as low as 49 nW, the OOK receiving power consumption as low as 1.74 μW, the LoRa BackCom power consumption of only 251 μW, and the communication distance up to 445 meters. Compared with the prototypes in existing literature, the BF LoRa Tag not only has lower power consumption, wider coverage, and the lowest cost, but also has complete system functions. Finally, we discuss the reciprocity between stations and receivers, as well as the BF LoRa cellular communication network, which provides useful references for the practica