Leveraging Multichannel Backscatter for Reliable IoT Connectivity Using Adaptive Channel Selection

Traditional backscatter communication systems typically operate in a single frequency band and suffer severe performance degradation in the presence of strong interference. To address this limitation, this paper proposes a multichannel backscatter communication (MCBC) system that enables data transmission across multiple frequency shifts using a single tag. Unlike prior approach that rely on multiple tags or antennas, our designed system achieves frequency diversity by serially shifting frequencies at the tag side, thereby enhancing robustness without increasing hardware complexity. To further improve communication reliability, we introduce a reliable channel selection algorithm that dynamically evaluates and selects the optimal frequency channel based on real-time bit error rate (BER) prediction. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed MCBC system achieves a 3.5 dB gain on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the BER level of 10-5 compared to the conventional backscatter systems even under complex interference. The results also show that our scheme maintains stable and energy-efficient communication across diverse environments, including real-world WiFi deployments.