PLatter: On the Feasibility of Building-scale Power Line Backscatter

This paper explores the feasibility of reusing power lines in a large industrial space to enable long-range backscatter communication between a single reader and ultra-low-power backscatter sensors on the walls that are physically not connected to these power lines, but merely in their vicinity. Such a system could significantly improve the data rate and range of backscatter communication with only a single reader installed, by using pre-existing power lines as communication media. We present PLatter, a building-scale backscatter system that allows ultra-low-power backscatter sensors or tags attached to walls with power lines right behind them to communicate with a reader several hundred feet away. PLatter achieves this by inducing and modulating parasitic impedance on power lines with the tag toggling between two loads in specialized patterns. We present a detailed evaluation of both the strengths and weaknesses of PLatter on a large industrial testbed with power lines up to 300 feet long, demonstrating a maximum data rate of 4 Mbps.