Emmanouil Tentzeris and Marvin Joshi’s new work demonstrates how a lens‑enabled backscatter system can deliver modern wireless capability without traditional transmitters.
Professor Emmanouil “Manos” Tentzeris and Ph.D. student Marvin Joshi hold a lens‑enabled backscatter system that could support battery‑free wireless communication across future smart city infrastructure.
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Earlier this year, Georgia Tech researchers showed that specially designed lenses could harvest energy from ambient wireless signals, pointing toward a future of battery-free sensors embedded throughout smart cities and digital infrastructure.
But powering devices is only part of the challenge. Enabling those same systems to communicate at modern data rates is a much harder. That’s the leap the team is now making. The same lens-based approach is being used to unlock high-speed communication once considered out of reach for ultra-low-power systems.
In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers in Professor Emmanouil Tentzeris’ Agile Technologies for High-performance Electromagnetic Novel Applications (ATHENA) lab demonstrated a first-of-its-kind lens-enabled backscatter system capable of multi-gigabit data rates, reaching up to 4 gigabits per second (Gbps). At the same time, it operates using only a fraction of the power required by conventional wireless devices — bringing high-speed connectivity to systems that were never meant to support it.
For years, backscatter has been treated as a tradeoff: extremely low power, but extremely limited performance. Rather than generating its own radio signal, a backscatter device modulates and reflects existing wireless transmissions to communicate, allowing it to operate with minimal energy.
As a result, backscatter has typically been used only to send small amounts of data, most often in simple identification and sensing systems.
“What we’ve shown is that backscatter doesn’t have to be slow,” said Marvin Joshi, the research lead and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “With the right architecture, it can operate at gigabit‑per‑second speeds while remaining ultra‑low power.”
A close‑up view of the device reveals an array of tiny antenna elements positioned behind the lens, each modulating reflected wireless signals to enable high‑speed communication with minimal energy use.
The Lens That Makes It Possible
The Georgia Tech team’s dielectric lens — similar in spirit to an optical lens — focuses incoming millimeter-wave energy onto an array of tiny antenna elements, enabling both wireless energy capture and high‑speed backscatter communication within the same system.
The system reshapes and reflects existing wireless signals, with each element modulating the reflected signal to enable high-speed data transmission without requiring a traditional transmitter.
At millimeter-wave frequencies, used by 5G and future 6G systems, there is plenty of available bandwidth, but signals at these frequencies are highly directional and sensitive to alignment.
In practice, that means even small misalignment can break the link. This has been a major limitation for real-world deployment. The lens overcomes that constraint by enabling high gain and wide angular coverage simultaneously, without the need for active beam steering.
“Think of it like a camera lens for wireless signals,” Tentzeris said. “It captures energy coming from many different directions and focuses it efficiently onto the device.”
The result is a system that can communicate over a ±55-degree field of view, maintaining strong performance even when the device and the reader are not perfectly aligned.
Fiber-Level Speeds, Nearly Zero Power
The performance is where the impact becomes clear.
A concept illustration shows how the lens-enabled system’s wide angular coverage and passive backscatter communication enable flexible deployment on moving platforms such as drones and aircraft, as well as fixed smart city infrastructure and personal devices.
In controlled experiments, the researchers achieved data rates of up to four Gbps, with sustained gigabit communication at distances of up to 20 meters, using high-order modulation schemes like those used in modern cellular networks.
For a system that doesn’t generate its own signal, those numbers are unexpectedly efficient. The system operates at just 0.08 picojoules per bit-approaching million-fold improvements compared to conventional wireless radios.
“To put that in perspective,” Tentzeris said, “a typical wireless transmitter burns milliwatts of power. This system operates at essentially near-zero power while pushing the data rates 1,000 times higher than what traditional backscatter could do.”
Taken together, the results point to a fundamentally different class of wireless system, according to Tentzeris, one that combines high data rates with ultra-low power in a way that hasn’t been demonstrated before.
Based on standard wireless modeling, the team estimates the technology could support Gbps communication over distances of kilometers when paired with existing 5G millimeter-wave infrastructure, extending high-speed, ultra-low-power links far beyond what has been achievable with backscatter systems.
“That combination is exactly what future wireless networks are moving toward. This capability aligns naturally with next‑generation 6G systems,” said Tentzeris, pointing to the growing importance of Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) and Joint Communication and Sensing (JCAS) frameworks that require simultaneous communication, sensing, and localization.
From Smart Cities to Disaster Response
But speed and efficiency are only part of the story. Because the devices are low-cost, lightweight, and printable, they could be deployed at massive scale on buildings, roads, vehicles, drones, or wearable systems.
In a smart city, thousands of these tags could continuously exchange information about traffic, air quality, or structural health without ever needing batteries. That means dense, always-on sensing and communication without worrying about power or upkeep.
In disaster zones, temporary high-speed networks could be set up almost instantly, without cables or power infrastructure.
“Imagine an ambulance transmitting high-resolution medical images in real time, or first responders building a live digital map of a disaster area,” Joshi said. “You get fiber-like performance, but completely wireless and energy-efficient.”
What’s Next
The architecture also lends itself to intelligent optimization, where AI-driven control can dynamically enhance signal capture and system efficiency, further expanding performance in large-scale deployments.
Shown near existing campus emergency infrastructure, the lens‑enabled backscatter device highlights how ultra‑low‑power wireless systems could be integrated directly into everyday infrastructure without relying on batteries or wired power.
“This is really about adding intelligence to anything, anywhere,” Tentzeris said. “When communication becomes this fast, efficient, and scalable, entirely new applications become possible.”
With the core architecture now demonstrated, the ATHENA Lab team is shifting focus from proof‑of‑concept to deployment.
That means moving out of the lab and into real-world environments. The next phase includes testing the system outdoors, integrating it onto drones and mobile platforms, and exploring flatter, more compact lens designs that could be easier to mount on real-world infrastructure.
“We’re thinking about how this fits into the broader wireless ecosystem,” Joshi said. “We’ve shown what’s possible. Now the question is how far we can push it in the real world."
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