CATO: Wake-Up reCeiver-bAsed communicaTiOn for Batteryless Devices

Batteryless devices offer an unparalleled opportunity for long-term, low-maintenance, and sustainable operation. These opportunities are especially attractive in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT). Such devices, however, rely on a stringent energy budget for their operation. As a result, batteryless devices often operate intermittently. Therefore, energy-intensive functionalities such as wireless communication, though valuable in practical applications, are still a significant challenge to realize on such devices. This work proposes wake-up receiver-based solutions for facilitating energy-efficient communication among batteryless, energy-harvesting devices. As a foundation for realizing wireless communication, we introduce BEWARE-MAC, a MAC protocol that exploits the capabilities of the underlying WuR to enable efficient message exchanges among batteryless devices. To demonstrate the broadcast capabilities of BEWARE-MAC, we propose WEND, a WuR-based neighbor discovery protocol that can operate on intermittently powered, batteryless devices. Finally, we present an evaluation of the proposed protocols using both experimental and simulation-based results. Our results suggest that BEWARE-MAC can improve the goodput of energy-constrained devices by up to 61.1%.