Optical Wireless Integrated Sensing and Communication Based on Optical Phased Array: Performance Metric and Optimal Beamforming

Optical wireless integrated sensing and communication (OW-ISAC) is emerging as a crucial technology to complement and augment its radio-frequency counterpart. In this paper, we propose an optical phased array (OPA)-based OW-ISAC framework to enable concurrent multi-user communication and environment imaging. The optical beamforming and atmospheric propagation are first elaborated to introduce the principles of OPA-based OW-ISAC. In addition, the investigation into the multi-beam property, direct detection scheme, and sensing task of imaging for OW-ISAC yields dedicated signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio and contrast metrics for communication and sensing sub-systems, respectively. Moreover, the precoding matrices and photodiode orientations are jointly optimized to achieve optimal beamforming. Subsequently, numerical simulations illustrate the relationships between communication and sensing performance metrics. Furthermore, the proposed OW-ISAC scheme is substantiated in a realistic scenario with the optimized beamforming. The demonstrated high-precision sensing and reliable communication capabilities of OPA-based OW-ISAC can serve plentiful future applications in the era of connection and intelligence.