Millimeter-Wave Multi-Channel Backscatter Communication and Ranging with an FMCW Radar

A multi-channel backscatter communication and radar sensing system is proposed and demonstrated in this paper. Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar ranging is integrated with simultaneous uplink data transmission from a self-packaged active radio frequency (RF) tag. A novel package solution is proposed for the RF tag. With the proposed package, the RF tag can transmit a 32-QAM signal up to 2.5 Gbps and QPSK signal up to 8 Gbps. For a multi-tag scenario, we proposed using spread spectrum code to separate the data from each tag. In this case, tags can be placed at arbitrary locations without adjacent channel interference. Proof-of-concept simulations and measurements are demonstrated. A 625 Mbps data rate is achieved in a dual-tag scenario for two tags.