Broadband physical layer cognitive radio with an integrated photonic processor for blind source separation

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Optical Engineering
• Signal Processing
• Telecommunications

Background:

• Telecommunications expansion leads to severe crosstalk and interference.
• Blind source separation (BSS) is a physical layer method to address signal mixtures.
• Existing electronic BSS implementations face limitations in bandwidth, energy consumption, and scalability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a versatile and scalable photonic approach for blind source separation (BSS).
• To overcome the bandwidth, energy, and scalability limitations of electronic BSS.
• To demonstrate an energy-efficient BSS system utilizing photonic integrated circuits.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a microring weight bank on a photonic chip.
• Utilizing wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) for scalable processing.
• Application of a dithering control method for high-resolution signal demixing.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated energy-efficient and scalable BSS across a 19.2 GHz processing bandwidth.
• Achieved high (9-bit) resolution in signal demixing.
• Obtained higher signal-to-interference ratios (SIR) even for challenging signal mixtures.

Conclusions:

• The photonic BSS approach offers significant advantages over electronic methods.
• The demonstrated system provides a versatile, scalable, and energy-efficient solution for signal recovery.
• This technology holds promise for future telecommunication systems requiring robust interference mitigation.