Ricerc@Sapienza

With the ever-growing usage of batteries in the IoT era, the need for more eco-friendly technologies is clear. RF-powered computing enables the re-design of personal computing devices in a battery-less manner. While there has been substantial work on the underlying methods for RF-powered computing, practical applications of this technology has largely been limited to scenarios that involve simple tasks. This article demonstrates how RFID technology, typically used to implement object identification and counting, can be exploited to realize a battery-free Smart Home.

In this paper a data base of L band backscattering simulations, based on the application of a discrete scattering model and detailed ground truth collected over Argentinean wheat fields, is tested. The simulations are directly compared against backscattering measurements collected over single fields. Then the scattering model is used to tune a semi empirical and manageable model function. Finally this function, jointly with a multi-temporal algorithm, is used for soil moisture retrieval and results are tested against an independent set of measurements.