On the scalability of constructive interference in low-power wireless networks

Abstract

Constructive baseband interference has been recently introduced in low-power wireless networks as a promising technique enabling low-latency network flooding and sub-μs time synchronisation among network nodes. The scalability of this technique has been questioned in regards to the maximum temporal misalignment among baseband signals, due to the variety of path delays in the network. By contrast, we find that the scalability is compromised, in the first place, by emerging fast fading in the composite channel, which originates in the carrier frequency disparity of the participating repeaters nodes. We investigate the multisource wave problem and show the resulting signal becomes vulnerable in the presence of noise, leading to significant deterioration of the link whenever the carriers have similar amplitudes.