Ambient backscatter communications using LTE cell specific reference signals

Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems provide ubiquitous coverage for mobile communications, which makes it a promising candidate to be used as a signal source in the ambient backscatter communications. In this paper, we propose a system in which a backscatter device modulates the ambient LTE signal by changing its reflection coefficient and the receiver uses the LTE Cell Specific Reference Signals (CRS) to estimate the channel and demodulates the backscattered signal from the obtained channel impulse response estimates. We first outline the overall system, discuss the receiver operation, and then provide experimental evidence on the practicality of the proposed system.