Communication coverage in wireless passive sensor networks

System lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSN) is inversely proportional to the energy consumed by critically energy-constrained sensor nodes during RF transmission. In that regard, modulated backscattering (MB) is a promising design choice, in which sensor nodes send their data just by switching their antenna impedance and reflecting the incident signal coming from an RF source. Hence, wireless passive sensor networks (WPSN) designed to operate using MB do not have the lifetime constraints of conventional WSN. However, the communication performance of WPSN is directly related to the RF coverage provided over the field the passive sensor nodes are deployed. In this letter, RF communication coverage in WPSN is analytically investigated. The required number of RF sources to obtain interference-free communication connectivity with the WPSN nodes is determined and analyzed in terms of output power and the transmission frequency of RF sources, network size, RF source and WPSN node characteristics.