Ambient internet of things (IoT) is the network of devices which harvest energy from ambient sources for powering their communication. After decades of research on operation of these devices, Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has started discussing energy harvesting technology in cellular networks to support massive deployment of IoT devices at low operational cost. This article provides a timely update on 3GPP studies on ambient energy harvesting devices including device types, use cases, key requirements, and related design challenges. Supported by link budget analysis for backscattering energy harvesting devices, which are a key component of this study, we provide insight on system design and show how this technology will require a new system design approach as compared to New Radio (NR) system design in 5G.
@article{arxiv.2312.06569,
title = {Ambient IoT: A missing link in 3GPP IoT Devices Landscape},
author = {M. Majid Butt and Nitin R. Mangalvedhe and Nuno K. Pratas and Johannes Harrebek and John Kimionis and Muhammad Tayyab and Oana-Elena Barbu and Rapeepat Ratasuk and Benny Vejlgaard},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.06569},
year = {2023}
}