Cross-Frequency Communication: Near-Field Identification of UHF RFIDs with WiFi!

Recent advances in Cross-Technology Communication (CTC) have improved efficient cooperation among heterogeneous wireless devices. To date, however, even the most effective CTC systems require these devices to operate in the same ISM band (e.g., 2.4 GHz) because of the conventional wisdom that wireless transceivers with different (fundamental) frequencies cannot communicate with one another. Our work, which is called TiFi, challenges this belief by allowing a 2.4 GHz WiFi receiver (e.g., a smartphone) to identify UHF RFID tags, which operates at the spectrum between 840 - 920 MHz. TiFi does not require changing current smartphones or tags. Instead, it leverages the underlying harmonic backscattering of tags to open a second channel and uses it to communicate with WiFi receivers. We design and implement TiFi with commodity WiFi chipsets (e.g., Broadcom BCM43xx, Murata KM6D280 40, and Qualcomm WCN3990). Our comprehensive evaluation shows that TiFi allows WiFi receivers to identify UHF RFID tags within the range of 2 m and with a median goodput of 95%, which is comparable to today's mobile RFID readers.

[1]  Kameswari Chebrolu,et al.  Esense: communication through energy sensing , 2009, MobiCom '09.

[2]  Sachin Katti,et al.  HitchHike: Practical Backscatter Using Commodity WiFi , 2016, SenSys.

[3]  Kang G. Shin,et al.  Gap Sense: Lightweight coordination of heterogeneous wireless devices , 2013, 2013 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM.

[4]  Qiongzheng Lin,et al.  Revisiting Reading Rate with Mobility: Rate-Adaptive Reading of COTS RFID Systems , 2019, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

[5]  Zhijun Li,et al.  WEBee: Physical-Layer Cross-Technology Communication via Emulation , 2017, MobiCom.

[6]  Smail Tedjini,et al.  Third Harmonic Exploitation in Passive UHF RFID , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[7]  Joshua R. Smith,et al.  LoRa Backscatter , 2017, Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol..

[8]  Kai Chang,et al.  Theoretical and experimental development of 10 and 35 GHz rectennas , 1992 .

[9]  Mo Li,et al.  Recitation: Rehearsing Wireless Packet Reception in Software , 2015, MobiCom.

[10]  Wenchao Jiang,et al.  Transparent cross-technology communication over data traffic , 2017, IEEE INFOCOM 2017 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications.

[11]  Lei Yang,et al.  Making sense of mechanical vibration period with sub-millisecond accuracy using backscatter signals , 2016, MobiCom.

[12]  Lei Yang,et al.  Tagoram: real-time tracking of mobile RFID tags to high precision using COTS devices , 2014, MobiCom.

[13]  Joshua R. Smith,et al.  FM Backscatter: Enabling Connected Cities and Smart Fabrics , 2017, NSDI.

[14]  David Wetherall,et al.  Ambient backscatter: wireless communication out of thin air , 2013, SIGCOMM.

[15]  S. Tedjini,et al.  Analysis of Harmonics in UHF RFID Signals , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[16]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Neighbor discovery in wireless networks and the coupon collector's problem , 2009, MobiCom '09.

[17]  A. Collado,et al.  Optimal Waveforms for Efficient Wireless Power Transmission , 2014, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters.

[18]  Sachin Katti,et al.  BackFi: High Throughput WiFi Backscatter , 2015, SIGCOMM.

[19]  Smail Tedjini,et al.  Redundant backscattering modulation of passive UHF RFID tags , 2013, 2013 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest (MTT).

[20]  Joshua R. Smith,et al.  PASSIVE WI-FI: Bringing Low Power to Wi-Fi Transmissions , 2016, GETMBL.

[21]  Smail Tedjini,et al.  Harmonics in Wireless Power Transfer (H-WPT): Passive UHF RFID Case , 2014 .

[22]  Joshua R. Smith,et al.  Inter-Technology Backscatter: Towards Internet Connectivity for Implanted Devices , 2016, SIGCOMM.

[23]  D. Dobkin.  The RF in RFID : UHF RFID in Practice Ed. 2 , 2012 .

[24]  Gregory D. Durgin,et al.  Power-optimized waveforms for improving the range and reliability of RFID systems , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on RFID.

[25]  Fadel Adib,et al.  Minding the Billions: Ultra-wideband Localization for Deployed RFID Tags , 2017, MobiCom.

[26]  Smail Tedjini,et al.  Harmonic Power Harvesting System for Passive RFID Sensor Tags , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[27]  Hendrik Rogier,et al.  Wireless Power Transmission: R&D Activities Within Europe , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[28]  Pavel V. Nikitin,et al.  Harmonic scattering from passive UHF RFID tags , 2009, 2009 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.

[29]  Edwin C. Kan,et al.  3D real-time indoor localization via broadband nonlinear backscatter in passive devices with centimeter precision , 2016, MobiCom.

[30]  Tian He,et al.  FreeBee: Cross-technology Communication via Free Side-channel , 2015, MobiCom.

[31]  A. Georgiadis,et al.  Optimum behavior: Wireless power transmission system design through behavioral models and efficient synthesis techniques , 2013, IEEE Microwave Magazine.

[32]  Ting Zhu,et al.  B2W2: N-Way Concurrent Communication for IoT Devices , 2016, SenSys.

[33]  Laurent George,et al.  Radio frequency measurements on a SBX daughter board using GNU radio and USRP N-210 , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Workshop on Measurements & Networking (M&N).

[34]  Qun Li,et al.  HoWiES: A holistic approach to ZigBee assisted WiFi energy savings in mobile devices , 2013, 2013 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM.