But the more such devices there are, the higher the load on communication networks and energy costs. SFedU scientists have researched technologies that can make data transmission faster, more stable, and more cost-effective for future 5G and 6G networks.

Today, about 75% of the world's population has access to the Internet. Smart homes, medical devices, environmental monitoring systems, and industrial sensors are constantly connected to the network and exchanging data. However, the widespread use of such devices creates a new problem: limited battery life and increasing strain on communication channels.

To solve this problem, scientists at Southern Federal University have explored the possibilities of signal backscattering and multiple access technology, which are considered as one of the foundations of future 5G and 6G networks.

The work is particularly relevant for the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), a network of interconnected devices and sensors that automatically collect and transmit data over the Internet. IoT includes, for example, smart watches, health monitoring systems, sensors in agriculture, smart city infrastructure elements, industrial sensors, and modern agricultural equipment. The developed approaches can be applied to these systems. Low power consumption and stable connectivity are especially important for such devices.

Such solutions are of particular importance for modern agricultural technologies. Today, agriculture is increasingly using sensor networks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and monitoring systems that help monitor the condition of soils, plants, and agricultural lands in real time. It is precisely such data that underlies digital soil twins, one of the promising areas of research that is developing at SFedU.

However, the operation of thousands of sensors in large areas requires reliable communication and minimal energy consumption. Regular battery replacement at remote sites significantly increases the cost of operation, and the growing number of connected devices creates additional strain on the network.

In their scientific work, the researchers compared two communication technologies: the more traditional OMA and the modern NOMA, and also studied their operation in combination with BackCom signal backscattering technology. BackCom allows devices to transmit data with minimal power consumption, using and reflecting existing radio waves. While the first allocates a separate time or frequency resource to each device, the second allows multiple users to use one channel. The peculiarity of this technology is that the devices can transmit information practically without using their own energy.

The study showed that the combination of BackCom and NOMA provides higher spectral efficiency and increases the total network bandwidth even in conditions of interference, channel estimation errors and signal loss.

"BackCom's integration with NOMA is well suited to future communication requirements for intelligent, scalable, and energy-efficient wireless ecosystems. It is also useful for, for example, creating a digital soil twin, where it is necessary to continuously receive data from a large number of sensors distributed throughout the territory," commented Professor Sudeep Tanvar, Visiting professor at SFedU, head of the megagrant "Development and implementation of a methodology for creating a digital soil twin based on artificial intelligence and Big Data technology." Dean of Marwadi University (Rajkot, India), specialist in wireless networks and digital technologies.

At this stage, the work is based on computer modeling. The next stage will be the creation of BackCom-NOMA test benches and testing the technology in real conditions. In the future, the researchers also plan to develop the field in conjunction with artificial intelligence and intelligent reflective surfaces (RIS) technologies, which are considered an important part of the 6G ecosystem. Such solutions can be used in telecommunications, environmental monitoring systems, industrial automation, and digital agriculture.

Southern Federal University, being a participant of the strategic academic leadership program "Priority 2030" (national project "Youth and Children"), concentrates efforts on solving the tasks of scientific and technological development of the country. As part of this work, the university creates full-cycle production and technological chains based on the network architecture of interaction to respond to "big challenges". The key areas of development cover a number of critical and end-to-end technologies that underpin the university's three key strategic technology projects. One of them is the STP "Technologies of Soil Bioengineering", which is being implemented by the team of the D.I. Ivanovsky Academy of Biology and Medicine of the Southern Federal University. In addition, based on many years of research, the academy's scientists have formulated a new national initiative — "Creating sustainable soils for future generations of Russia." It involves a transition from the traditional restoration of degraded lands to the creation of soil systems with specified properties adapted to specific climatic conditions and agricultural tasks. The initiative is based on the results of practical experiments on designing soil from scratch, which are already being implemented by SFedU researchers in the Rostov region.