A Batteryless Wireless Microphone Using RF Backscatter

Wireless microphones are essential tools in business, education, entertainment, and other domains. However, most existing designs rely on batteries, leading to the inconvenience of frequent recharging and the risk of unexpected power failure during use. In this paper, we present TagMic, a battery-free wireless microphone enabled by a novel radio frequency (RF) backscatter technology. TagMic is built on two key innovations. (i) Parametric backscatter tag design: This design enables the RF tag to operate at separate excitation and reflection frequencies, fundamentally mitigating the self-interference problem inherent in conventional RFID systems. Unlike harmonic backscatter approaches, it also requires a significantly lower activation voltage, resulting in a longer communication range. (ii) Voice modulation via RF coupling: A passive piezoelectric sensor is integrated with the RF tag through RF coupling to enable analog-domain frequency modulation (FM), directly encoding voice signals onto the backscattered signal. This eliminates the need for digital signal processing, allowing for truly continuous voice streaming. We have built a prototype of TagMic and evaluated it under realistic conditions. Extensive experiments demonstrate its effectiveness in achieving battery-free, continuous, and seamless wireless voice streaming in realistic applications.

CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Ubiquitous and mobile computing systems and tools; • Hardware → Sensor devices and platforms.