Impact of Inter-Tag Interference on Adaptive Multi-Source Ambient Backscatter Communication

Ambient Backscatter Communication (AmBC) enables ultra-low-power transmission using ambient radio frequency (RF) signals for massive Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In dense deployments, however, active tags may cause inter-tag interference, often overlooked in prior work. This paper evaluates a multi-source AmBC system across interference coupling levels. Three fixed-operation schemes and an adaptive scheme are compared via Monte Carlo simulations. Interference reduces average sum spectral efficiency, with adaptive operation being more robust than fixed-operation schemes. This contrast is evident at 32 dBm, where severe interference causes about 55% loss for HTB, a fixed-operation scheme, compared with only 20% for the adaptive scheme.