A Vibrational Radar Backscatter Communication Experimental Testbed

This paper describes a vibrational radar backscat-ter communication (VRBC) experimental testbed for studying VRBC processing methods and performance. VRBC is a wire-less communication approach that uses a mmW radar as a vibrometer to observe messages encoded in a transponding surface's vibrations. This method of backscatter communications provides unique benefits such as low-latency, minimal mutual interference, reduced amounts of required additional infrastructure, and no required RF spectrum allocation for system message sources. To demonstrate VRBC performance, this paper details signal processing and experimental results obtained in a laboratory environment. Signal processing methods presented here include non-conventional synchronization that requires only knowledge of the system's preamble excitation signal and a system identification method for estimating the responses of detected VRBC transponders. These methods are implemented using commercially available hardware consisting of a Texas Instrument millimeter (mmW) radar and a thin, resonant aluminum plate transponder, representing a surface which could be employed for anything-to-vehicle (X2V) communication.