Hybrid Backscatter Communication for Wireless Powered Communication Networks

We propose hybrid backscatter communication for wireless powered communication networks (WPCNs) to increase transmission range and provide uniform rate distribution in heterogeneous network (HetNet) environment. In such HetNet where the TV tower or high-power base station (macrocell) coexists with densely deployed small-power access points (e.g., small-cells or WiFi), users can operate in either dedicated bistatic scatter or ambient backscatter, given that the harvested energy from the dedicated or ambient RF signals may not be sufficient to support the existing harvest-then-transmit (HTT) protocol for WPCNs. Considering this dual mode operation, we formulate throughput maximization problem depending on the user location, namely indoor or outdoor zone. After showing the optimal time allocation for the dual mode operation, we show that the performance of the proposed hybrid backscatter communication is superior to the other schemes.