Performance Analysis of Directional Clustered Backscatter Communication Networks

Backscatter communication (BackCom) technology holds great promise by enabling devices to send data through reflecting ambient signals. Implementing BackCom in Internet of Things (IoT) networks can effectively address energy sustainability. However, BackCom currently faces two main challenges: 1) a relatively short transmission range and low throughput, resulting from the double-path transmission of the BackCom; 2) existing performance analytical models are application-limited to IoT scenarios, because most of them consider a relatively idealized device assumption such as uniform device distribution, while the BackCom is highly sensitive to device distributions because of its environment-dependence characteristics. To tackle these challenges, we introduce directional clustered BackCom networks (DIR-CBackCom Nets) where devices are organized in clusters and equipped with directional antennas. In DIR-CBackCom Nets, the interference is unique because of the combination of directional antennas and cluster distributions. Based on DIR-CBackCom Nets, we develop a general performance analysis model, which is not only applicable to our DIR-CBackCom Nets but also adaptable to CBackCom Nets with omnidirectional antennas (OMN-CBackCom Nets) and BackCom Nets with uniform device distribution. In the performance analysis, we highlight the relationship between communication performance and key parameters related to both cluster distribution and directional antennas. Extensive simulations validate the accuracy of our model. Our analytical model can be employed to optimize network performance by adjusting antenna configuration and device distribution.