NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: Low-cost, Convenient, Non-intrusive Methods for Enabling the Internet of Things

物联网（IoT）在工业界和学术界都获得了蓬勃发展的势头。从手机到智能手机，从电表到智能电表，从汽车到联网汽车，由于嵌入式系统和传感器网络的快速发展，将微型计算设备与目标对象集成在一起，新产品的数据通信、传感和信息交换能力得到了增强。然而，这种用新设计取代旧产品的方法可能会很昂贵，有时还不方便。物联网设备的额外成本和部署时间已经成为采用物联网技术的障碍。拟议的项目将开发可替代的物联网支持技术，这些技术可以通过标记对象或其环境轻松部署。这种低成本、方便、非侵入性的方法在不重新设计和更换现有产品的情况下，具有巨大的潜力，可以产生重大的实际影响，加快物联网部署。该项目还为学生培训、本科生研究参与和物联网领域的推广活动提供了一个有趣的教育平台。该提案的目标是提供一种替代的、方便的、非侵入性的方法，能够将世界上大量现有的物体，无需重新设计，变成半智能物体，以实现物联网愿景所承诺的一些好处。拟议中的项目侧重于将RFID标签附着在物体上或将标签放置在物体环境中的低成本方法。它利用标签物理层信号中嵌入的丰富信息，如相位、幅度、极化、波形、耦合效应等，支持物联网应用。拟议的研究包括两个主要重点。第一个推力研究物联网功能，其中对象被标记。基于从单个标签传输的信号的物理层特性，这些函数将确定标签载体的特性，包括它们的方向、位置、速度、间距、轨迹、振荡率等。第二个推力调查物联网功能，其中对象的环境被标记。基于一组标签的联合物理层属性，这些功能将以非侵入式的方式执行对象轨迹跟踪和隐藏内容检查。

The Internet of things (IoT) has been gaining momentum in both industry and academic communities. From phones to smart phones, from electricity meters to smart meters, from cars to connected vehicles, new products have been developed with enhanced capabilities in data communications, sensing, and information exchange, thanks to rapid advance in embedded systems and sensor networks, which integrate miniaturized computing devices with the target objects. However, this approach of replacing old products with new designs can be expensive and sometimes inconvenient. The extra cost and deployment time of IoT devices have become a barrier for the adoption of IoT technologies. The proposed project will develop alternative IoT-enabling technologies that are easily deployable through tagging the objects or their environment. Such low-cost, convenient, non-intrusive methods hold great potential in making significant practical impact and expediting IoT deployment without redesigning and replacing the products already in use. The project also offers an interesting education platform for student training, undergraduate research participation, and outreach activities in the IoT domain.The goal of this proposal is to provide an alternative, convenient and non-intrusive approach that is capable of turning a vast number of existing objects in the world, without redesign, into semi-smart objects for some of the benefits promised by the IoT vision. The proposed project focuses on low-cost methods that attach RFID tags to objects or place tags in the objects' environment. It exploits the rich information embedded in the physical-layer signals from tags, such as phase, amplitude, polarization, waveform, and coupling effect to support IoT applications. The proposed research consists of two major thrusts. The first thrust investigates the IoT functions where objects are tagged. Based on the physical-layer properties of the signals transmitted from individual tags, these functions will determine the properties of the tags' carriers, including their orientations, locations, speeds, spacing, trajectories, oscillation rates, etc. The second thrust investigates the IoT functions where the objects' environment is tagged. Based on the joint physical-layer properties from a set of tags, these functions will perform object trajectory tracking and hidden content inspection in a non-intrusive manner.