  Backscatter communication (BSC) technology can enable ubiquitous deployment
of low-cost sustainable wireless devices. In this work we investigate the
efficacy of a full-duplex multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) reader for
enhancing the limited communication range of monostatic BSC systems. As this
performance is strongly influenced by the channel estimation (CE) quality, we
first derive a novel least-squares estimator for the forward and backward links
between the reader and the tag, assuming that reciprocity holds and K
orthogonal pilots are transmitted from the first K antennas of an N antenna
reader. We also obtain the corresponding linear minimum-mean square-error
estimate for the backscattered channel. After defining the transceiver design
at the reader using these estimates, we jointly optimize the number of
orthogonal pilots and energy allocation for the CE and information decoding
phases to maximize the average backscattered signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for
efficiently decoding the tag's messages. The unimodality of this SNR in
optimization variables along with a tight analytical approximation for the
jointly global optimal design is also discoursed. Lastly, the selected
numerical results validate the proposed analysis, present key insights into the
optimal resource utilization at reader, and quantify the achievable gains over
the benchmark schemes.
