Ultra-Low Power Communication for Infrastructure Monitoring During a Disaster

Abstract

To monitor public infrastructure systems such as power grid during and after a disaster or emergency, radio communication requiring neither an external power source nor a pre-deployed connection point is needed. Ambient backscatter communication meets such requirements thanks to its ultra-low power consumption and ad hoc connectivity, thus being suitable as a backup method for infrastructure monitoring in such situations. In this paper, we describe the detailed methods to realize ambient backscatter communication particularly using Wi-Fi signals as carrier signals and demonstrate an experimental testbed system to discuss its feasibility in practice.