Page 15 - ITU Journal, Future and evolving technologies - Volume 1 (2020), Issue 1, Inaugural issue

ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies, Volume 1 (2020), Issue 1

LIST OF ABSTRACTS

Backscatter communications with passive receivers: From
fundamentals to applications

Pages 1-11

Milutin Stanaćević, Akshay Athalye, Zygmunt J. Haas, Samir R. Das, Petar M. Djurić
The principle of backscattering has the potential to enable a full realization of the Internet of Things.
This paradigm subsumes massively deployed things that have the capability to communicate directly
with each other. Based on the types of excitation and receivers, we discriminate four types of
backscattering systems: (i) Dedicated Exciter Active Receiver systems, (ii) Ambient Exciter Active
Receiver systems, (iii) Dedicated Exciter Passive Receiver systems, and (iv) Ambient Exciter Passive
Receiver systems. In this paper, we present an overview of bacskscattering systems with passive
receivers which form the foundation for Backscattering Tag-to-Tag Networks (BTTNs). This is a
technology that allows tiny batteryless RF tags attached to various objects to communicate directly with
each other and to perform RF-based sensing of the communication link. We present an overview of
recent innovations in hardware architectures for backscatter modulation, passive demodulation, and
energy harvesting that overcome design challenges for passive tag-to-tag communication. We further
describe the challenges in scaling up the architecture from a single link to a distributed network. We
provide some examples of application scenarios enabled by BTTNs involving object-to-object
communication and inter-object or human-object dynamic interactions. Finally, we discuss key
challenges in present-day BTTN technology and future research directions.
View Article

Non-coherent massive MIMO-OFDM for communications in high
mobility scenarios

Pages 13-24
Kun Chen-Hu, Yong Liu, Ana Garcia Armada
Under scenarios of high mobility, the traditional coherent demodulation schemes (CDS) have a limited
performance, due to the fact that reference signals cannot effectively track the variations of the channel
with an affordable overhead. As an alternative solution, non‑coherent demodulation schemes (NCDS)
based on differential modulation have been proposed. Even in the absence of reference signals, they are
capable of outperforming the CDS with a reduced complexity. The literature on NCDS laid the
theoretical foundations for simplified channel and signal models, often single‑carrier and spatially
uncorrelated flat‑fading channels. In this work, the most recent results assuming orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM) signaling and realistic channel models are explained, and the impact of
some hardware impairments such as the phase noise (PN) and the non‑linear high power amplifier (HPA)
are also considered. Moreover, new potential research lines are also highlighted.
View Article

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