PLatter: On the Feasibility of Building-Scale Power Line Backscatter

Junbo Zhang, Elahe Soltanaghai, Artur Balanuta, Reese Grimsley, Swarun Kumar, Anthony Rowe

Abstract: Can we read ultra-low-power sensors in a large industrial or commercial building with a single reader using the power line system? As the manufacturing industry becomes more and more automated, IoT sensors are also being widely deployed inside industrial buildings. Given the significant cost associated with retrofitting an industrial building, a wired network for IoT installation might not be desirable. On the other hand, long-range wireless networks are either power-hungry (e.g., Wi-Fi or cellular), or support only a low data rate (e.g., LoRa). In this paper, we explore an alternative approach: leveraging the power line infrastructure to enable building-scale wireless backscatter communication.