OFDM-based photonic-assisted joint wireless communication and sensing system

An OFDM-based photonic-assisted joint wireless communication and sensing system with a full-duplex radio-over-fiber (RoF) fronthaul link is proposed to perform both communication and sensing tasks. In this scheme, for long-distance wireless signal distribution, both downlink and uplink OFDM signals are optically modulated onto the optical carrier in a single sideband (SSB) pattern to reduce degradation caused by fiber chromatic dispersion, based on RoF technology. The optical carrier of the downlink optical SSB-OFDM signal is extracted and reused to carry the uplink RF signal, thereby avoiding the need to deploy an optical source at the base station. Moreover, owing to the large bandwidth, time duration, and good autocorrelation properties, the downlink OFDM signal is also employed for ranging by receiving the echo signal reflected by targets to sense the wireless communication environments. Simulation results show that the system implements communication functionality at a bit rate of 2 Gbit/s, with EVMs of 5.46% and 5.04% for the upstream and downstream signals, respectively. Simultaneously, the ranging function is realized with a distance resolution of 15 cm. The proposed scheme has a simple structure, high integration, and low cost based on a co-shared OFDM waveform, and it is expected to be applied in joint wireless communication and sensing systems.