Nonsequential Link Adaptation Using Repetition Codes for Wi-Fi Backscatter Communication

To enhance the throughput performance and reliability of Wi-Fi backscatter communication, we develop a nonsequential link adaptation scheme using repetition codes and voting to obtain the final decoded bit from repeated bits. To address the estimation of channel conditions from limited transmission results, we convert the packet success rate of one coding scheme into that of another via virtual independent and identically distributed bit errors. The packet success rates that would result in equal expected throughputs of different repetition codes are similarly derived and used as code selection thresholds. We prototype the proposed scheme and, via testbed experiments incorporating commercial Wi-Fi receivers, demonstrate the effectiveness of link adaptation using repetition codes and the throughput gain of the proposed scheme over benchmark schemes.