Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32764638›Full record

ArticleNature communications2020

Metasurface-assisted massive backscatter wireless communication with commodity Wi-Fi signals.

Hanting Zhao, Ya Shuang, Menglin Wei, Tie Jun Cui, Philipp Del Hougne, Lianlin Li

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
47citing papers in PubMed
10.5field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

47 citing papers in PubMed, 191 citations in OpenAlex.

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  11. Programmable electron-induced color router array.Light, science & applications · 2025
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  18. In vivoMagnetic resonance in medicine · 2024
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.

Hanting Zhao *State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Electronics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
Ya Shuang *State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Electronics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
Menglin WeiState Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Electronics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
Tie Jun CuiState Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University, 210096, Nanjing, China. tjcui@seu.edu.cn.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5862-1497
Philipp Del HougneUniv Rennes, CNRS, Institut d'Electronique et de Télécommunications de Rennes (IETR)-UMR 6164, 35000, Rennes, France. philipp.delhougne@gmail.com.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4821-3924
Lianlin LiState Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Electronics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China. lianlin.li@pku.edu.cn.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9394-3638
Peking University · CNCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique · FRSoutheast University · BD

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Conventional wireless communication architecture, a backbone of our modern society, relies on actively generated carrier signals to transfer information, leading to important challenges including limited spectral resources and energy consumption. Backscatter communication systems, on the other hand, modulate an antenna's impedance to encode information into already existing waves but suffer from low data rates and a lack of information security. Here, we introduce the concept of massive backscatter communication which modulates the propagation environment of stray ambient waves with a programmable metasurface. The metasurface's large aperture and huge number of degrees of freedom enable unprecedented wave control and thereby secure and high-speed information transfer. Our prototype leveraging existing commodity 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi signals achieves data rates on the order of hundreds of Kbps. Our technique is applicable to all types of wave phenomena and provides a fundamentally new perspective on the role of metasurfaces in future wireless communication.

Identifiers

PMID32764638
PMCPMC7413398
OpenAlexW3002512653

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.