NeTS: Medium: Collaborative Research: Passive Network of Tags for Smart Spaces

We envision a future where all objects in spaces around us will be tagged with miniature battery-less radio frequency-powered tags. Such tags will be able to autonomously interact among themselves and the surrounding environment. They will be able to communicate over low-power wireless links without the need for an active on-board radio or any centralized control. These interactions will enable "Smart Spaces" wherein objects can collaboratively perceive the surrounding spaces and recognize other objects, their relationships and dynamic activities involving them. Due to their exceptionally low-power design the tags communicate via intelligent reflection or backscattering of the same radio frequency signal that powers them. The proposed project envisions the "Passive Network of Tags" (PNET) paradigm, where tags are able to network among themselves and are able to operate in varying degrees of radio frequency power availability. PNET will form the foundational technology for smart spaces enabling object identification and tracking, understanding inter-object interactions and associations, sensing and distributed processing of information to support futuristic higher level applications. The project involves innovative research across various sub-disciplines in order to make the proposed PNET for smart spaces a reality. The proposed project will develop: 1) An adaptive energy-aware tag architecture that will allow for high efficiency of energy harvesting along with increased sensitivity and robustness of the tag- to-tag link; 2) Techniques for measurement of channel amplitude and phase in passive receiver tags which will empower the PNET with the ability to detect dynamic interactions between tags as well as events around the tags; 3) Scalable and adaptable distributed multi-hop routing for diverse PNET-specific topologies and novel solutions for making inference under stressful network, system and signal conditions; and 4) A set of tags implemented on a custom hardware platform that will embody the research results and will allow for experiments and demonstrations in a real-world smart home setup. The broader impact of the project will include the following: 1) The investigators will develop educational and training materials for the broader research community. 2) The researchers will work with programs at their respective universities to encourage women's participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs, specifically contributing to their curriculum and encouraging K-12 students to pursue careers in STEM. 3) The project will contribute to curriculum development and undergraduate research in both universities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.