LoRa Backscatter Network Efficient Data Transmission Using RF Source Range Control

Networks based on backscatter communication provide wireless data transmission in the absence of a power source.A backscatter device receives a radio frequency(RF)source and creates a backscattered signal that delivers data;this enables new services in battery-less domains with massive Internet-of-Things(IoT)devices.Connectivity is highly energy-efficient in the context of massive IoT applications.Outdoors,long-range(LoRa)backscattering facilitates large IoT services.A backscatter network guarantees timeslot-and contention-based transmission.Timeslot-based transmission ensures data transmission,but is not scalable to different numbers of transmission devices.If contention-based transmission is used,collisions are unavoidable.To reduce collisions and increase transmission efficiency,the number of devices transmitting data must be controlled.To control device activation,the RF source range can be modulated by adjusting the RF source power during LoRa backscatter.This reduces the number of transmitting devices,and thus collisions and retransmission,thereby improving transmission efficiency.We performed extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of our method.

Source Range Estimation Based on Pulse Waveform Matching in a Slope Environment

An approach of source range estimation in an ocean environment with sloping bottom is presented. The approach is based on pulse waveform correlation matching between the received and simulated signals. An acoustic prop- agation experiment is carried out in a slope environment. The pulse signal is received by the vertical line array, and the depth structure can be obtained. For the experimental data, the depth structures of pulse waveforms are different, which depends on the source range. For a source with unknown range, the depth structure of pulse waveform can be first obtained from the experimental data. Next, the depth structures of pulse waveforms in dif- ferent ranges are numerically calculated. After the process of correlating the experimental and simulated signals, the range corresponding to the maximum value of the correlation coefficient is the estimated source range. For the explosive sources in the experiment with two depths, the mean relative errors of range estimation are both less than 7%.

Passive source range estimation with a single receiver in shallow water

An approach for long-range passive impulsive source ranging with a single receiver in shallow water is proposed, which utilizes the frequency spectrum of the warped signal autocor- relation function via warping transform. For an ideal waveguide, there are invariable frequency features both in the frequency spectrum of the warped signal corresponding to modal cut-off frequencies and the warped signal autocorrelation function due to modal interference. These intrinsic frequency features can be used to passive source ranging. So, the approximate rela- tionship between the frequency of warped signal at an unknown source range and the intrinsic frequency extracted by the time warping transform is derived. These rules can be generalized to an actual shallow water waveguide. Employing an acoustic model to offer the invariable frequency spectrum features, the impulsive signal data collected by a single hydrophone in the North Yellow Sea in December 2011 are analyzed to verify the proposed source ranging ap- proach. The estimated ranges are in good agreement with the ranges measured by GPS, and the mean relative error of range estimation is less than 10%.

Bearing splitting and near-surface source ranging in the direct zone of deep water

Sound multipath propagation is very important for target localization and identification in different acoustical zones of deep water. In order to distinguish the multipath characteristics in deep water, the Northwest Pacific Acoustic Experiment was conducted in 2015. A low-frequency horizontal line array towed at the depth of around 150 m on a receiving ship was used to receive the noise radiated by the source ship. During this experiment, a beating-splitting phenomenon in the direct zone was observed through conventional beamforming of the horizontal line array within the frequency band 160 Hz- 360 Hz. In this paper, this phenomenon is explained based on ray theory. In principle, the received signal in the direct zone of deep water arrives from two general paths including a direct one and bottom bounced one, which vary considerably in arrival angles. The split bearings correspond to the contributions of these two paths. The beating-splitting phenomenon is demonstrated by numerical simulations of the bearing-time records and experimental results, and they are well consistent with each other. Then a near-surface source ranging approach based on the arrival angles of direct path and bottom bounced path in the direct zone is presented as an application of bearing splitting and is verified by experimental results. Finally, the applicability of the proposed ranging approach for an underwater source within several hundred meters in depth in the direct zone is also analyzed and demonstrated by simulations.

Performance analysis of source ranging by use of virtual receiver technique under different frequency bands

The traditional matched field processing localization need complicated computation to get the replica field and has high dependence on environment parameters and acoustic field model. To overcome the shortcoming, virtual receiver technique is used for source ranging. A virtual receiver is constructed by correlating the two signals of the guide source and the objective source received by a vertical line array. Then, the slope of the interference striation of the virtual field is estimated using relevant signal processing method. Combining with the waveguide invariant/3, the range of the objective source is determined. Through the numerical simulations and data processing collected from the experiment carried out in the South China Sea in 2004, the virtual receiver technique for broadband source ranging under the slope- bottom shallow water environment is discussed. As the frequency increases, the frequency bands should be broadened to obtain complete interference striation for good ranging results. In data processing, the receiving array spacing is too large to promise the orthogonality of the modes as the frequency increases and ranging results become worse.