Integrated sensing and communication system based on a photonic integrated broadband multi-beamformer

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Integrated Optics
• Wireless Communication
• Radar Systems

Background:

• Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems offer potential for multimodal information processing.
• Existing ISAC systems face challenges in achieving simultaneous high-resolution sensing and high-speed communication across broad bandwidths.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and demonstrate an ISAC system leveraging a photonic integrated broadband multi-beamformer.
• To showcase the capability of synthesizing multiple squint-free beams for simultaneous sensing and communication.

Main Methods:

• Development of a photonic integrated broadband multi-beamformer using an optical true-time-delay Blass matrix framework.
• Implementation of space division multiplexing enabled by multi-beamforming for concurrent operations.
• Experimental validation of the ISAC system architecture.

Main Results:

• Simultaneous synthesis of five squint-free beams across the Ku-band spectrum.
• Demonstration of high-resolution microwave imaging with a 1 GHz bandwidth.
• Achieved high-speed wireless communication at a 2.4 Gbps data rate.

Conclusions:

• The photonic integrated broadband multi-beamformer effectively enables simultaneous radar sensing and wireless communication.
• The demonstrated ISAC system architecture shows significant promise for future advanced multimodal information systems.
• This work validates the potential of photonic integration for next-generation ISAC applications.