Internet of Things (IoT) which is revolutionizing the industry and our lives, is a key technology paradigm for the forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) and future wireless communication systems. IoT devices in practice have strict limitations on energy, cost, and complexity, thus it is highly desirable to design power- and spectrum-efficient communication technologies. Ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) has recently emerged as a promising technology to fulfill such demands. On the one hand, AmBC enables IoT backscatter devices (BDs) to modulate their information symbols over ambient radio-frequency (RF) carriers (e.g., TV, WiFi, or cellular signals) without using costly and power-hungry RF transmitter. The energy consumption for passive transmission via backscattering is two to three orders of magnitude lower than conventional active transmission via radiation. On the other hand, AmBC does not need a dedicated radio spectrum which is scarce and expensive, due to the spectrum sharing between the backscatter transmission and the ambient transmission.
However, in order to support high-rate transmission and wide area coverage for IoT devices, AmBC needs to address many technical challenges. For instance, the direct-link signal from the RF source brings several co-channel interferences for the backscatter receiver detecting the signals from BD(s), and the ambient RF source may be unstable. This special issue will focus on theoretical and practical design issues for AmBC, including information-theoretic analysis, efficient transceiver design, resource allocation, multiple access, etc. The aim here is to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and individuals working on the related areas to share their new ideas, latest findings, and state-of-the-art results. Topics of interest in this special issue include but not limited to the following:
Investigating new applications, services, and use cases enabled by AmBC
Statistical characteristics and modeling for backscatter channels
Information theory for AmBC
Waveform design, high-order modulation and coding for BDs
AmBC receiver design with direct-link interference cancellation/suppression
AmBC based on multiple-antenna technologies including massive MIMO
AmBC over OFDM signals
AmBC over millimeter wave communication signals
Cooperative technologies for AmBC
Spectrum sharing and cognitive radio technologies for AmBC
Wireless power transfer in AmBC systems
Resource allocation for AmBC systems
Multiple access technologies for AmBC networks
Machine learning for AmBC
Management of heterogeneity of ambient signals
Security and jamming issues for AmBC
Field measurement and prototype results for AmBC systems
AmBC or backscatter communication meet full-duplex, NOMA, UAV, D2D, …
New architecture and communication protocols for AmBC
The submitted papers should be original, not published or currently under review for publications in any other journal. Submitted Articles have no page limits and can be any of the following types: technical, tutorial, survey, magazine, letter, or commentary. Also, authors can submit multiple articles to the same issue.