Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS....

8
IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless Sensor Tags with Multiple Subcarrier Multiple Access Nitish RAJORIA a) , Yuki IGARASHI , Nonmembers, Jin MITSUGI †† , Yuusuke KAWAKITA ††† , and Haruhisa ICHIKAWA ††† , Members SUMMARY This paper proposes a novel multiple access method that enables concurrent sensor data streaming from multiple batteryless, wire- less sensor tags. The access method is a pseudo-FDMA scheme based on the subcarrier backscatter communication principle, which is widely em- ployed in passive RFID and radar systems. Concurrency is realized by as- signing a dedicated subcarrier to each sensor tag and letting all sensor tags backscatter simultaneously. Because of the nature of the subcarrier, which is produced by constant rate switching of antenna impedance without any channel filter in the sensor tag, the tag-to-reader link always exhibits har- monics. Thus, it is important to reject harmonics when concurrent data streaming is required. This paper proposes a harmonics rejecting receiver to allow simultaneous multiple subcarrier usage. This paper particularly focuses on analog sensor data streaming which minimizes the functional requirements on the sensor tag and frequency bandwidth. The harmonics rejection receiver is realized by carefully handling group delay and phase delay of the subcarrier envelope and the carrier signal to accurately pro- duce replica of the harmonics by introducing Hilbert and inverse Hilbert transformations. A numerical simulator with Simulink and a hardware im- plementation with USRP and LabVIEW have been developed. Simulations and experiments reveal that even if the CIR before harmonics rejection is 0 dB, the proposed receiver recovers the original sensor data with over 0.98 cross-correlation. key words: backscatter communication, multiple access, harmonic rejec- tion 1. Introduction The integrity of civil structures, airplane, artificial satellite and machinery should be examined regularly after their con- struction to avoid failures and accidents. In reality, however, we occasionally see fatal accidents stemming from the lack of suciently frequent and detailed health checking. The major hindrances of the checking are the dependency on hu- man intervention and labor intensive preparation. Figure 1 shows vibrational testing of an artificial satel- lite. There are a number of vibration sensors attached to the body of the satellite and each sensor is connected to the power source and the signal processor. Wire harnesses shall Manuscript received December 13, 2016. Manuscript revised April 27, 2017. Manuscript publicized June 13, 2017. The authors are with Graduate Student, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa-shi, 252-0882 Japan. †† The author is with Faculty of Environment and Informations Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa-shi, 252-0882 Japan. ††† The authors are with Department of Human Communica- tions, University of Electro-Communications, Chofu-shi, 182- 8585 Japan. a) E-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1587/transcom.2016EBP3472 Fig. 1 An artificial satellite subjected to vibrational testing (source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). be carefully routed not to damage the mechanical character- istics and also the delicate structure, which is labor intensive and demands a dedicated environment. This is the typical setting of vibrational testing to measure frequency response of a structure. Concurrent collection of data streaming from multiple sensors is essential to establish the frequency re- sponse of the structure against an exciting force. If we realize health check with wireless batteryless im- planted sensors, we can examine the target structures more often and in detail with lower cost, which surely will miti- gate safety risk. This is why batteryless wireless structural health check attracts significant technical interest [1][5]. The use of backscatter wireless communication to transfer not only unique ID of physical objects, but also sensor data is an emerging research field [6], [7]. Multiple Subcarrier Multiple Access (MSMA) have been proposed for this challenge [8], [9]. The principle is based on the backscatter wireless communication mecha- nism which is extensively used in passive RFID and radars [10]. The best feature of MSMA is to allow concurrent sen- sor data streaming from multiple batteryless sensors. Since our previous publications have not fully ad- dressed the interference rejection methodology and general evaluations, we describe the details of MSMA in this paper. To facilitate the discussion, we first explain the backscat- ter communications principle, then introduce the concept of MSMA and the related work. 1.1 Backscatter Wireless Communications Principle A typical backscatter wireless communications system is Copyright c 2017 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers

Transcript of Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS....

Page 1: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 20172121

PAPERConcurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and WirelessSensor Tags with Multiple Subcarrier Multiple Access

Nitish RAJORIA†a), Yuki IGARASHI†, Nonmembers, Jin MITSUGI††, Yuusuke KAWAKITA†††,and Haruhisa ICHIKAWA†††, Members

SUMMARY This paper proposes a novel multiple access method thatenables concurrent sensor data streaming from multiple batteryless, wire-less sensor tags. The access method is a pseudo-FDMA scheme based onthe subcarrier backscatter communication principle, which is widely em-ployed in passive RFID and radar systems. Concurrency is realized by as-signing a dedicated subcarrier to each sensor tag and letting all sensor tagsbackscatter simultaneously. Because of the nature of the subcarrier, whichis produced by constant rate switching of antenna impedance without anychannel filter in the sensor tag, the tag-to-reader link always exhibits har-monics. Thus, it is important to reject harmonics when concurrent datastreaming is required. This paper proposes a harmonics rejecting receiverto allow simultaneous multiple subcarrier usage. This paper particularlyfocuses on analog sensor data streaming which minimizes the functionalrequirements on the sensor tag and frequency bandwidth. The harmonicsrejection receiver is realized by carefully handling group delay and phasedelay of the subcarrier envelope and the carrier signal to accurately pro-duce replica of the harmonics by introducing Hilbert and inverse Hilberttransformations. A numerical simulator with Simulink and a hardware im-plementation with USRP and LabVIEW have been developed. Simulationsand experiments reveal that even if the CIR before harmonics rejection is0 dB, the proposed receiver recovers the original sensor data with over 0.98cross-correlation.key words: backscatter communication, multiple access, harmonic rejec-tion

1. Introduction

The integrity of civil structures, airplane, artificial satelliteand machinery should be examined regularly after their con-struction to avoid failures and accidents. In reality, however,we occasionally see fatal accidents stemming from the lackof sufficiently frequent and detailed health checking. Themajor hindrances of the checking are the dependency on hu-man intervention and labor intensive preparation.

Figure 1 shows vibrational testing of an artificial satel-lite. There are a number of vibration sensors attached tothe body of the satellite and each sensor is connected to thepower source and the signal processor. Wire harnesses shall

Manuscript received December 13, 2016.Manuscript revised April 27, 2017.Manuscript publicized June 13, 2017.†The authors are with Graduate Student, Graduate School of

Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa-shi, 252-0882Japan.††The author is with Faculty of Environment and Informations

Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa-shi, 252-0882 Japan.†††The authors are with Department of Human Communica-

tions, University of Electro-Communications, Chofu-shi, 182-8585 Japan.

a) E-mail: [email protected]: 10.1587/transcom.2016EBP3472

Fig. 1 An artificial satellite subjected to vibrational testing (source:Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

be carefully routed not to damage the mechanical character-istics and also the delicate structure, which is labor intensiveand demands a dedicated environment. This is the typicalsetting of vibrational testing to measure frequency responseof a structure. Concurrent collection of data streaming frommultiple sensors is essential to establish the frequency re-sponse of the structure against an exciting force.

If we realize health check with wireless batteryless im-planted sensors, we can examine the target structures moreoften and in detail with lower cost, which surely will miti-gate safety risk. This is why batteryless wireless structuralhealth check attracts significant technical interest [1]–[5].The use of backscatter wireless communication to transfernot only unique ID of physical objects, but also sensor datais an emerging research field [6], [7].

Multiple Subcarrier Multiple Access (MSMA) havebeen proposed for this challenge [8], [9]. The principle isbased on the backscatter wireless communication mecha-nism which is extensively used in passive RFID and radars[10]. The best feature of MSMA is to allow concurrent sen-sor data streaming from multiple batteryless sensors.

Since our previous publications have not fully ad-dressed the interference rejection methodology and generalevaluations, we describe the details of MSMA in this paper.To facilitate the discussion, we first explain the backscat-ter communications principle, then introduce the concept ofMSMA and the related work.

1.1 Backscatter Wireless Communications Principle

A typical backscatter wireless communications system is

Copyright c© 2017 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers

Page 2: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

2122IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017

Fig. 2 Passive RFID enables a batteryless RF tag to send signal bychanging the antenna impedance.

passive RFID in the UHF (860–960 MHz) band. The sys-tem is extensively used in supply chain management (SCM)applications where tiny, low cost RF tags are attached tophysical objects. The location and disposition of the physi-cal objects are shared among stakeholders via a standardizedinformation platform [10], [11]. The non-line-of-sight longrange communication, fast inventory of RF tags and writingfunction distinguish UHF RFID from other automatic iden-tification technology such as bar-code and NFC.

A passive RFID system comprises of a Reader/Writerand multiple RF tags. The RF tag is powered by the con-tinuous wave (CW) provided by the Reader/Writer and pro-cesses the commands. The tag-to-reader link is establishedby changing the antenna impedance of the RF tag with anembedded RF switch, as shown in Fig. 2. Multiple accessfrom RF tags to Reader/Writer is usually based on TDMA,specifically frame slotted ALOHA.

RF tag which houses a sensor and can superimposesensor data on backscatter signal is referred to as sensor tag.When sensor data needs to be collected from sensor tags, theReader/Writer commands the acknowledged RF tag to sendsensor data. Since the existing multiple access methods insuch sensor data collection state are all based on TDMA, itis difficult to send sensor streams concurrently from multi-ple sensor tags.

The communication distance between an RF tag andReader/Writer is, in many cases, dominated by the reader-to-tag link, which powers RF tags. When we have a highsensitivity RF tag, the second bottleneck of reading distanceis the phase noise of the Reader/Writer. Since the phasenoise diminishes as we widen the frequency separation fromthe powering CW, many UHF RFID system employ subcar-rier backscatter by superimposing a constant rate on/off key-ing to the digital data. The spectrum of normal backscatterand subcarrier backscatter are illustrated in Fig. 3.

The subcarrier backscatter is advantageous to avoidphase noise with the penalty of less bandwidth. With thesubcarrier backscatter, we can also protect the inherentlyweak backscatters from neighbor Reader/Writers. Sincesubcarrier is produced by constant rate on/off keying with-out any channel filter, a subcarrier backscatter entails har-monics. Because of these harmonics, the simultaneous us-age of multiple subcarriers has not been considered nor triedso far.

1.2 MSMA Overview

MSMA is a pseudo-frequency division multiple access(FDMA) using multiple subcarriers simultaneously, as

Fig. 3 By adding constant rate on/off keying to the data, we can separatebackscatter signal from the phase noise of empowering continuous wave.

Fig. 4 MSMA uses multiple subcarriers enabling concurrent sensor datastream collection. We shall reject mutual harmonics.

Fig. 5 Multiple subcarrier multiple access has two phases. In the firstphase, the Reader/Writer inventories sensor tags with conventional frameslotted ALOHA. In the second phase, the Reader/Writer transmits contin-uous wave which powers sensor tags to allow concurrent data streamingfrom sensor tags.

shown in Fig. 4.The high-level protocol of MSMA is shown in Fig. 5.The Reader/Writer first inventories the RF tags

with conventional frame slotted ALOHA. This way, theReader/Writer collects all the unique IDs of RF tags in theinterrogation field together with their RSSIs. After the in-ventory, the Reader/Writer assigns a dedicated subcarrierfrequency to each sensor tag. The authors previously pro-posed an optimized subcarrier allocation in MSMA [12].Next, the Reader/Writer transits into the “listen” state wherethe Reader/Writer receives the sensor data stream. There-fore, it is obvious that MSMA is advantageous in the ap-plications where we demand long duration of synchronizedsensor stream observation such as vibration testing of ma-chinery and continuous surveillance and monitoring.

The superposition of the sensor stream on to thebackscatter signal can be done either by digital or analog

Page 3: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

RAJORIA et al.: CONCURRENT BACKSCATTER STREAMING FROM BATTERYLESS AND WIRELESS SENSOR TAGS2123

Fig. 6 A typical schematic of sensor tag in MSMA.

modulation. In digital modulation, we first sample andquantize sensor data with an analog-digital converter (ADconverter). The digital sensor data is superimposed on thesubcarrier by taking the exclusive OR of sensor data andsubcarrier bits. In analog modulation, we can eliminatethe AD converter in the sensor tag. If we develop a har-monics rejection receiver which supports concurrent analogstreams, we can even apply the method to digitally modu-lated signal regardless of the modulation and coding schemeused. This strategy, in return, demands a sophisticated re-jection method. A sensor tag in MSMA can thus be pro-duced just by adding a sensor and a modulator to the RFtag, as shown in Fig. 6. The harmonic rejection method can-cels out the mutual interference among subcarrier. Replicaof subcarrier harmonics can be calculated from the primalsubcarrier. The main problem in this replica generation isaccurate measurements of phase delay and carrier delay ofprimal subcarrier as subcarrier fluctuates from the originalfrequency.

1.3 Related Works

Concurrent multiple access from simple sensor tags is usu-ally realized by employing FDMA. But in the case ofbackscatter communication with a low function sensor tag,it is impractical, if not impossible, to implement the adap-tive channel filter to realize FDMA. The concurrent datastream with TDMA demands burst transmission, which isalso impracticable in low function sensor tags. There areproposals to use CDMA [13], [14] but CDMA suffers froma large number of interfering sensor tags and the transmis-sion power control to mitigate near/far problem is difficultto implement in backscatter communications.

There have been studies to separate collided signalsfrom multiple passive RF tags [15]–[17]. These studies as-sume that signals are digitally modulated and their IQ con-stellations are calibrated first and can be discriminated eachother with the calibration. Hu [15] additionally uses thetime envelop to extract collided signal information to en-able concurrent sensor data streaming. Since all the existingstudies are subjected to ASK, they require another IQ datacalibration every time the sensor tags or the Reader/Writerchange their position and orientation, not to mention themoving tags and moving Reader/Writers. The sampled andquantized sensor signal needs to be digitally superimposedonto the subcarrier signal, which inevitably expands the fre-quency bandwidth. Even when we assume the minimumsampling rate (double the Nyquist frequency) and 8 bitsquantization. The required bandwidth expands by a factorof sixteen times compared to analog streaming.

The rejection of analog harmonics caused by the non-linearity of amplifiers has been studied since the 1960s. Re-cently the use of digital signal processing for the harmonicsprocess is studied in [18]–[20]. Although the fundamentalidea of rejecting harmonics is applicable to the backscattersignals, these existing studies do not consider the phase de-lay, which demands delicate handling of backscatter signalsas explained later in this paper.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2,we explain the principle of harmonic rejection method.In Sect. 3, the harmonics rejection performance is evalu-ated with simulations with Simulink and experiments usingUSRP and LabVIEW. Section 4 concludes the paper.

2. Harmonic Rejection Method

As we explained earlier, a subcarrier is produced by a con-stant rate on/off keying of antenna impedance. Figure 7shows the general backscatter signal from a sensor tag forone period of the subcarrier. For the sake of general discus-sion, the phase delay of subcarrier envelope φ is introduced.The backscatter signal is phase modulated with sensor sig-nal x, there is a carrier phase delay Ψo, and modulation in-dex m. Since the carrier phase delay and the signal phasedelay can not be separable, we denote the carrier phase shiftcollectively such that Ψ = Ψo + x.

Note that the subcarrier signal component is very smallcompared with the powering continuous wave because asubcarrier signal is fundamentally a reflection as shown inFig. 7. Therefore, to obtain the maximum resolution of themodulated signal, the bias component of the signal is usu-ally removed at the ingress of the receiver by applying a highpass filter (HPF). Denoting the subcarrier and the carrier an-gular velocities as ωs and ωc, respectively, the modulatedsubcarrier signal S (t) after HPF can be written as below.

S (t) = α∑

n=1,3,···

1n

sin(nωst − nφ)e j(ωct+Ψ) (1)

where

α =2(1 − m)

π.

It is shown that we inevitably produce harmonics with oddmultiple of the principal subcarrier and higher harmonicproduce less interference as the reciprocal of the harmon-ics order.

The receiver down-converts the incoming subcarriersignal S (t) by multiplying the carrier signal e− jωct to yieldthe baseband IQ signal such that

I = α∑

n=1,3,···

1n

sin(nωst − nφ) cos Ψ

Q = α∑

n=1,3,···

1n

sin(nωst − nφ) sin Ψ. (2)

As a result, IQ constellation forms a straight line in the phase

Page 4: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

2124IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017

Fig. 7 A typical subcarrier wave form. The envelop is changed with aconstant rate toggling of an RF switch.

plane.The challenges in deriving harmonic replicas from a

primal subcarrier signal, therefore, are summarized as fol-lows.

• We shall handle φ and Ψ separately because the sub-carrier phase delay φ in a harmonic replica shall bemultiplied according to the order of harmonics to keepthe linear group delay, while Ψ stays the same in allthe harmonic replicas. For example, for n-th order har-monics nωs and the delay angle shall be nφ, as shownin Eq. (1).

• We shall derive the amplitude of the primal signal toyield the predefined amplitude degradation term 1

n inEq. (1) while the amplitude of primal subcarrier fluctu-ates as the IQ components move along a straight line.

The first problem can be solved by accurately measuringcarrier phase shift Ψ. We apply a regression analysis witha recursive least square (RLS) filter to this problem. We de-velop a solution to the second problem as in the followingsubsection.

2.1 Replica Generation with Hilbert and Inverse HilbertTransformations

Because the amplitude of the measured subcarrier signalfluctuates in time, the amplitude of the primal subcarrier sig-nal should be measured and be adjusted to produce harmon-ics replicas. For this purpose, we introduce an analytic sig-nal of the subcarrier with Hilbert transformation. IQ compo-nents of analytic signal of primal subcarrier (Eq. (2) wheren = 1), denoted as I, Q, are given as follows.

I = −α cos(ωst − φ) sin Ψ

Q = α cos(ωst − φ) cos Ψ (3)

The combined real and analytic signal, denoted as the aug-mented subcarrier signal Z, rotates in the IQ plane with sub-carrier frequency keeping the instantaneous amplitude con-stant.

Z = I + I + j{Q + Q

}(4)

Fig. 8 Real signal and its analytic signal produced by Hilbert transforma-tion together form the augmented signal which rotate with an instantaneousamplitude.

The harmonics of the augmented signal rotates with the an-gular velocity which is proportional to the order of harmon-ics as shown in Fig. 8. Since Ψ stays the same when we pro-duce a harmonic, we counter-rotate the augmented signal byΨ to obtain the following circle.

Zs = Ze− jΨ

= α sin(ωst − φ) + jα cos(ωst − φ) (5)

This way, we can produce harmonics of the augmented sig-nal, denoted as augmented harmonics, simply by multiply-ing the phase angle obtained, for example, by a phase lockedloop (PLL) and applying appropriate scaling according tothe order of harmonics.

The harmonic replica is obtained by adding the carrierphase shift Ψ and projecting the augmented harmonics tothe Ψ plane. Since this projection provides the inverse op-eration of Hilbert transformation, we refer to this projectionas Inverse Hilbert Transformation. When we denote an aug-mented harmonics as

r = rr + jri, (6)

and the unit vector of the carrier phase plane as cos Ψ +

j sin Ψ, the Inverse Hilbert transformation of r, H−1(r), canbe concisely represented by the following linear transforma-tion.

H−1(r) = (rr cos Ψ + ri sin Ψ)(cos Ψ + j sin Ψ)

=

[cos Ψ cos Ψ cos Ψ sin Ψ

cos Ψ sin Ψ sin Ψ sin Ψ

] {rrjri

}(7)

2.2 Harmonics Rejection

Let us first consider a simple case, where we have a har-monic from sensor tag 1 subcarrier which interferes the pri-mal subcarrier of sensor tag 2 as shown in Fig. 4. The aug-mented subcarrier signal in IQ plane is shown in Fig. 9. The

Page 5: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

RAJORIA et al.: CONCURRENT BACKSCATTER STREAMING FROM BATTERYLESS AND WIRELESS SENSOR TAGS2125

R1R2R3...

R9

=

sin(ω1t − φ1) 0 0 · · · 00 sin(ω2t − φ2) 0 · · · 0

13 sin(3ω1t − 3φ1) 0 sin(ω3t − φ3) · · · 0

.... . .

...19 sin(9ω1t − 9φ1) 0 1

3 sin(3ω3t − 3φ3) · · · sin(ω9t − φ9)

A1e jΨ1

A2e jΨ2

A3e jΨ3

...A9e jΨ9

(8)

Fig. 9 The harmonic from sensor tag 1 is interfering with the primal sub-carrier from sensor tag 2. The compound signal observed at the subcarrierchannel of sensor tag 2.

carrier phase shifts, Ψ1,Ψ2 of each subcarrier are indepen-dent. The observed signal in the subcarrier channel of sensortag 2 is the superposition of those two subcarriers. When weproduce the replica of the harmonics from the primal subcar-rier signal of sensor tag 1, we can recover the primal signalof sensor tag 2 by subtracting the replica from the observedsignal.

Next, we consider a case where we have nine sensortags. The nine sensor tags use different subcarrier channelsfrom f1 to f9. For the simplicity, we assume sensor tag iuses subcarrier channel i without loss of generality. Eachsubcarrier is assumed to be modulated with an analog sen-sor stream. Because of the nature of the subcarrier signal, apart of harmonics of a subcarrier fall into the other sensorsbandwidth such that each subcarrier produces harmonics atodd number multiples of the subcarrier frequency. Since wecan remove the contribution of the envelope and carrier shiftwith Hilbert and inverse Hilbert transformations explainedin the previous section, we only consider the modulated sub-carrier signal Aie jΨi as the transmitted signal and Ri as thereceived signal where i denotes i-th subcarrier frequency.The mathematical representation of this nine sensor config-uration is shown in Eq. (8).

Note that Eq. (8) is a lower triangular matrix and ev-ery instantaneous component in the matrix can be measuredand sequentially computed with the procedure in the abovesubsections.

Fig. 10 CIR range can be improved by the proposed assignment method.

2.3 Carrier-to-Interference Ratio

The contribution of the harmonic rejection method dependson the original Carrier-to-Interference Ratio (CIR). The CIRof a sensor tag depends on its allocated subcarrier frequencyand the distance it is located from the Reader/Writer. In [12]authors propose a subcarrier assignment method and com-pared with different heuristic methods to show the CIR canbe improved by allocating subcarrier frequency efficiently.Figure 10 shows an example of varying range of CIR rangewhen fifty sensor tags are allocated to subcarriers with therandom assignment method and the proposed assignmentmethod. The sensor tags are uniformly distributed in a circu-lar area of radius 10 meter in the random fashion, the readeris located at the center. The minimum distance between asensor tag and reader is fixed to 1 meter. It can be seen thatthe CIR above 0 dB when subcarrier frequencies allocatedwith proposed assignment method.

3. Evaluation

We implement an MSMA simulator with Simulink to ver-ify the fundamental characteristics of MSMA and also de-veloped an experiment system with prototype sensor tags,USRP2920 and LabVIEW. The overview of the demodula-tion process in both the simulator and the experimental ofsystem for nine subcarrier channels is shown in Fig. 11.

3.1 MSMA Simulator with Simulink

The simulation on Simulink is carried out to verify the pro-posed fundamental MSMA demodulation process. The pa-rameters used for the simulations are listed in Table 1. For

Page 6: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

2126IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017

Fig. 11 Block diagram of harmonics rejection method is constructed both in Simulink and Experi-mental System.

Table 1 The simulation parameters.

Simulation Parameter Valuesensor tag 1 20kHz

Subcarrier frequency sensor tag 2 60kHzsensor tag 3 180kHzsensor tag 1 2kHz

Sensor signal (sin wave) sensor tag 2 1kHzsensor tag 3 500Hz

the simulations we consider concurrent sensor data stream-ing and demodulation with 3 sensor tags whose harmonicsare mutually interfering. The mutually interfering subcar-rier frequencies for each sensor tag are intentionally selectedto evaluate the effect of our proposed interference rejectionprocess. The harmonic of sensor tag 1 is interfering withthe primal subcarrier of sensor tag 2 and harmonics of sen-sor tags 1 and 2 are interfering with the primal subcarrierof sensor tag 3. In this simulation, all the replica of sensortag 1 harmonics are calculated and subtracted first, then sen-sor tag 2’s primal subcarrier is recovered and demodulated.Finally the replicas of sensor tag 2 harmonics is calculatedand subtracted to recover and demodulate the sensor tag 3’sprimal subcarrier.

3.2 Experimental Evaluation with USRP and LabVIEW

For the experimental evaluation, we developed a sensortag with a phase modulator and RF switch as shown inFig. 12. The RF switch (PE42421SCAA-Z) is controlled bya TI MSP430. The antenna impedance of the sensor tag ischanged by switching the route to open ended or terminatedand the subcarrier signal is generated. The sinusoidal wave-form as a sensor signal from the function generator is mod-ulated onto the outgoing subcarrier signal by a phase shifter(Skyworks PS088-315). Each sensor signal frequency is thesame as the parameters shown in Table 1.

The sensor model is not batteryless at this moment.But considering there is an experimental platform to use

Fig. 12 A sensor model developed for the experimental verification ofMSMA. Though an accelerometer is connected and it is feasible to obtainvibrational data, sinusoidal waveform generated by function generator isinput as a sensor signal for this experiment in order to obtain continuoussignal.

MSP430 as batteryless sensor tag [6], [21], the very lowpower consumption commercial MEMS accelerometer [22]and a commercial passive RF tag with accelerometer func-tion [7], it can be said that a passively powered sensor tagcould be built with current process and sensor technology.

Figure 13 shows the block diagram of the experimentsetup. The signal generator generates a CW at 915MHz asa transmitted signal from Reader/Writer. The carrier signalis backscattered by the sensor tag and the subcarrier signalis combined and received by USRP2920. The USRP2920is connected to a PC through Gigabit Ethernet cable, andIQ data are processed by a Virtual Instrument (VI) in Lab-View. Each sensor signal from the function generator is alsomeasured on the VI via NI USB-6009 (DAQ in Fig. 13) andcompared with the demodulated signal. The process of theVI is based on Fig. 11.

Configurations for the subcarrier frequency and thesensor signal of each sensor tag are identical to the simu-

Page 7: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

RAJORIA et al.: CONCURRENT BACKSCATTER STREAMING FROM BATTERYLESS AND WIRELESS SENSOR TAGS2127

Fig. 13 Experiment setup block diagram. All components are connectedwith coaxial cable except a PC, MSP430s, and function generators for ac-curate adjustment of the signal level.

Fig. 14 A comparison of correlation coefficients derived from simulationresult and experiment results corresponding to the CIR change.

lation. At the ingress of each sensor tag, a variable attenua-tor is installed to change the CIR that emulates the distancedifference between each sensor tag and a Reader/Writer.

3.3 Result of Simulations and Experiments

In order to quantitatively evaluate the result of simulationsand experiments, we derive and compare the correlation co-efficients between the demodulated sensor signal and theoriginal sensor signal at respective CIR environment asshown in Fig. 14. CIR 0 dB represents an environment inwhich power of the interfering signals from sensor tags 1and 2 and the power of the desired subcarrier signal fromsensor tag 3 are same. Even in case of CIR 0 dB, the cor-relation coefficients in both simulation and experiment areover 0.98. When it comes to CIR 7 dB the correlation coef-ficients are improved over 0.99 in both case.

Figure 15 shows the comparison of those signals at dif-ferent CIR (0 dB, 7 dB). Even though small fluctuations areobserved in the case of CIR 0 dB on the demodulated signal,still it shows good approximation to the original signal. Inthe case of CIR 7 dB, there is much less fluctuation com-pared with the case of CIR 0 dB.

4. Conclusion

Concurrent sensor data streaming from batteryless wirelesssensors can be realized by using the proposed multiple sub-carrier multiple access (MSMA). Because of the minimum

Fig. 15 Concurrently received and demodulated signal from sensor tag 3is compared with its original signal from function generator.

functional requirements on sensors, concurrent sensor datastreaming entails mutual interference. Yet, the mutual inter-ference can be accurately rejected with the harmonics rejec-tion receiver proposed herein. The challenges of the receiverreside in the careful handling of the phase delay of the sub-carrier envelop and the carrier signal. The harmonics rejec-tion receiver solves this problem by handling those delays inan augmented IQ signal which is produced by Hilbert trans-formation and projecting it back to the real IQ signal by amathematical treatment which we refer to as inverse Hilberttransformation. By successively subtracting the harmon-ics replica from the received signal, we can accurately re-cover the original sensor data streaming at the receiver. Theachieved accuracy is confirmed, both with simulations andexperiment, to be above 0.98 cross-correlation even whenthe CIR before the harmonics rejection is 0 dB.

Acknowledgement

This work is sponsored by Ministry of Internal Affairand Communications Japan under SCOPE grant number155003007.

References

[1] S. Adee, “Wireless sensors that live forever,” IEEE Spectr., vol.47,no.2, pp.14–14, Jan. 2010.

[2] Analog Devices, MEMS wireless vibration sensing enables remotemonitoring of industrial machine health, Analog device news re-lease, June 4, 2013.

[3] Z. Wang, F. Bouwens, R. Vullers, and F. Petre, “Energy-autonomouswireless vibration sensor for condition-based maintenance of ma-chinery,” IEEE Sensors, pp.790–793, 2011.

[4] S.E. George, M. Bocko, and G.W. Nickerson, “Evaluation of a vi-bration powered wireless temperature sensor for health monitoring,”IEEE Aerospace Conference, pp.3775–3781, 2005.

[5] M.R. Akhond, A. Talevski, T.H. Cho, “Prototype design and anal-ysis of wireless vibration sensor,” International Conference onBroadband, Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications,pp.818-0823, 2010.

[6] V. Talla and J.R. Smith, “Hybrid analog-digital backscatter: A newapproach for battery-free sensing,” IEEE International Conferenceon RFID, pp.74–81, 2013.

[7] Kineo-Battery free orientation sensor tag, http://www.farsens.com/

en/product/3/kineo1-battery-free-orientation-sensor-tag. visited Dec.10, 2016.

Page 8: Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless … · 2018-07-31 · IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017 2121 PAPER Concurrent Backscatter Streaming

2128IEICE TRANS. COMMUN., VOL.E100–B, NO.12 DECEMBER 2017

[8] Y. Igarashi, Y. Sato, Y. Kawakita, J. Mitsugi, and H. Ichikawa, “Afeasibility study on simultaneous data collection from multiple sen-sor RF tags with multiple subcarriers,” IEEE International Confer-ence on RFID, pp.141–146, 2014.

[9] Y. Igarashi, N. Rajoria, J. Mitsugi, Y. Kawakita, and H. Ichikawa, “Aperformance analysis of interference rejection technique in multi-subcarrier multiple access,” RFID Technology and Applications(RFID-TA), 2015 IEEE International Conference on. IEEE, 2015.

[10] ISO/IEC 18000-6, Information Technology - Radio frequency iden-tification for item management -, Part 6 Parameters for air interfacecommunications at 860 MHz to 960 MHz, (2010).

[11] GS1 EPCglobal, “The GS1 EPCglobal Architecture Framework,”GS1 Version 1.7 dated 18 April 2015, http://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/ docs/architecture/EPC architecture 1 7-framework-May-2015.pdf

[12] N. Rajoria, Y. Igarashi, J. Mitsugi, Y. Kawakita, and H. Ichikawa,“Comparative analysis on channel allocation schemes in multi-ple subcarrier passive communication,” IEICE Trans. Commun.,vol.E98-B, no.9, pp.1777–1784, Sept. 2015.

[13] E. Vahedi, R.K. Ward, and I.F. Blacke, “Performance analysis ofRFID protocols: CDMA versus the standard EPC Gen-2,” IEEETrans. Autom. Sci. Eng., vol.11, no.4, pp.1250–1261, Oct. 2014.

[14] N. Saldanha and D.C. Malocha, “Pseudo-orthogonal frequencycoded wireless SAW RFID temperature sensor tags,” IEEE Trans.Ultrason., Ferroelectr., Freq. Control, vol.59, no.8, pp.1750–1758,2012.

[15] P. Hu, P. Zhang, and D. Ganesan, “Laissez-Faire: Fully asymmet-ric backscatter communication,” ACM Sigcomm’15, pp.255–267,2015.

[16] R. Khasgiwale, R. Adyanthaya, and D. Engels, “Extracting informa-tion from tag collisions,” IEEE RFID, pp.131–138, 2009.

[17] D. Shen, G. Woo, D. Reed, A. Lippman, and J. Wang, “Separation ofmultiple passive RFID signals using Software Defined Radio,” IEEERFID, pp.139–146, 2009.

[18] J.A. Weldon, R.S. Narayanaswami, J.C. Rudell, L. Lin, M. Ot-suka, S. Dedieu, L. Tee, K.-C. Tsai, C.-W. Lee, and P.R. Gray,“A 1.75 GHz highly-integrated narrow-band CMOS transmitter withharmonic-rejection mixers,” IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol.36,no.12, pp.2003–2015, 2001.

[19] C. Li, M. Li, M. Verhelst, A. Bourdoux, L. Van der Perre, andS. Pollin, “On the general mathematica framework, calibration/

compensation method, and applications of non-ideal software de-fined harmonics rejection transceivers,” IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst.I, Reg. Papers, vol.62, no.1, pp.292–301, 2015.

[20] H. Zhang, T.B. Gao, S.C.G. Tan, and O. Shana’a, “A harmonic-rejection mixer with improved design algorithm for broadband TVtuners,” IEEE RFIC 2012, pp.163–166, 2012.

[21] A.P. Sample, D.J. Yeager, P.S. Powledge, A.V. Mamishev, and J.R.Smith, “Design of an RFID-based battery-free programmable sens-ing platform,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol.57, no.11, pp.2608–2615, 2008.

[22] Analog Devices ADXL362 Accelerometer, http://www.analog.com/

en/mems-sensors/mems-accelerometers/adxl362/products/product.html

[23] C.E. Shannon, “A mathematical theory of Communication,” BellSyst. Tech. J., vol.27, no.3, pp.379–423, 1948.

Nitish Rajoria received his Master Degreefrom Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad(IITH) India in Computer Science & Engineer-ing. He has worked on LTE, M2M Communica-tions. Currently, he is a Doctoral student in KeioUniversity, Japan. His current research interestinclude wireless communications, RFID and in-formation technology.

Yuki Igarashi received a Bachelor’s de-gree and Master’s degree from Keio Universityin 2014 and 2016, respectively. He is currentlywith Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Hisresearch interests are signal processing in wire-less communications and related informationtechnology.

Jin Mitsugi received a B.S. from NagoyaUniversity in 1985, M.S. and Ph.D. from TokyoUniversity in 1987 and 1996, respectively. Hewas with NTT Laboratory from 1987 pursuingresearch and development on satellite communi-cation system. He has been with Auto-ID Labo-ratory, Japan at Keio University since 2004. Hisresearch interests are network RFID, sensor net-work system, satellite communications and op-erations research

Yuusuke Kawakita received a B.A., anM.A. degree and Ph.D. from Keio Universityin 2000, 2002 and 2008, respectively. He is anassistant professor at the University of Electro-Communications. His present research interestsfocus on the ubiquitous sensing and its platformarchitecture.

Haruhisa Ichikawa received B.S., M.S.,and Dr. Eng. degrees in electrical engineeringfrom the University of Tokyo in 1974, 1976, and1989, respectively. He joined NTT Laboratoriesin 1976, where he was engaged in fundamentalresearch on communications software and dis-tributed computing. He created and conductedmany R&D projects for software, Internet, in-formation sharing platform, and ubiquitous net-works, including business incubation. He wasExecutive Director of NTT Science and Core

Technology Laboratory Group till 2007, and is currently Professor at theUniversity of Electro-Communications, Tokyo.