CRII: CNS: Integrated Sensing and Communication with Optical Wireless: A Retro-reflective Link Design

集成传感和通信与光学无线（ISAC-OW）是一个潜在的6G使能技术。利用可见光和红外光谱，高精度传感和定位以及高速移动通信可以在单个系统中实现，为未来的6G场景（如智能医院和工业自动化）提供先进的解决方案。反向反射光学上行链路是ISAC-OW的一个有前途的新兴解决方案，它提供了几个有利的特性，包括无障碍校准，对相邻链路的干扰最小，微瓦功耗，低硬件复杂性，无眩光和防嗅嗅，并且可以在单个灯具下使用紧凑尺寸的标签同时进行传感，定位和通信。然而，基于反向反射链路的ISAC-OW技术的潜力受到需要跨学科方法的基础理论和技术发展挑战的制约。该项目将研究大规模网络中支持反向反射上行链路的ISAC-OW系统的基本设计权衡。预期的项目成果将推动ISAC-OW系统的基础理论和实际设计策略的发展。该项目为代表性不足的学生提供跨学科的培训机会，涵盖通信理论和信号处理，光学无线系统和电路设计以及无线网络。提出的研究开发了一种新的跨域框架，用于集成设计高效和可扩展的反向反射上行链路ISAC-OW网络。本课题主要围绕四个重点研究目标展开：1)对光链路进行建模，研究光读写器和光标签的硬件设计，实现尽可能多的光通量从发射端传输到接收端；2)研究MAC协议，充分利用物理层（PHY）能力，解决并发传输挑战；3)开发高效灵活的联合传感与通信频谱分配策略；4)基于硬件和协议的试验台实验验证的综合系统建模与性能评估。提出的研究重点是对ISAC- ow的几个关键操作需求进行调查，包括ISAC- ow的分析光学模型、动态硬件可重构性和可扩展性、并发传输机制以及不同用例下ISAC的新的频谱分配方法。提出的研究将为工业界和学术界对新兴ISAC-OW系统的跨学科设计和分析提供催化剂，以满足互联智能和应用需求。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Integrated sensing and communication with optical wireless (ISAC-OW) is a potential 6G enabling technology. Leveraging visible light and infrared spectrums, high-precision sensing and positioning, and high-speed mobile communication can be realized in a single system, enabling advanced solutions for future 6G scenarios, such as smart hospitals and industrial automation. The retro-reflective optical uplink is a promising emerging solution to ISAC-OW that offers several favorable features including hassle-free alignment, minimal interference to adjacent links, microwatt power consumption, low hardware complexity, glaring-free and sniff-proof, and enables simultaneous sensing, positioning and communication with a compact-size tag under a single luminaire. However, the potential of retro-reflective link-based ISAC-OW technology is tempered by basic theoretical and technology development challenges that require a cross-disciplinary approach. The project will investigate fundamental design trade-offs in a retro-reflective uplink enabled ISAC-OW system for large-scale networks. The expected project results advance the state-of-the-art of basic theory and practical design strategies for ISAC-OW system. The project provides cross-disciplinary training opportunities for under-represented students spanning communication theory and signal processing, optical wireless system and circuit design, and wireless networking.The proposed research develops a new cross-domain framework for integrated design of efficient and scalable retro-reflective uplink enabled ISAC-OW networks. The project is anchored on four key research goals: 1) Modeling the retro-reflective optical link and investigating the hardware design of light reader and retro-reflective tag to convey as much luminous flux as possible from the emitter to the receiver; 2) Investigation of MAC protocols to fully exploit the physical (PHY) layer capabilities and address concurrent transmission challenges; 3) Development of an efficient and flexible spectrum allocation strategy for joint sensing and communication; and 4) Integrated system modeling and assessment for performance-complexity-energy optimization and testbed-based experimental validation of hardware and protocols. The proposed research features investigation of several key operational requirements, including analytical optical models of ISAC-OW, dynamic hardware reconfigurability and scalability, concurrent transmission mechanism and new spectrum allocation methods for ISAC in different use cases. The proposed research acts as a catalyst for cross-disciplinary design and analysis of emerging ISAC-OW system in industry and academia to meet the connected intelligence and application requirements.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.