Proof of concept experiments of joint waveform design for integrated sensing and communications

Abstract

We design and test over-the-air for the first time, a joint dual-functional radar communication waveform for an integrated radar sensing and multi-user multiple input multiple output (MIMO) based orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication system. Unlike existing work, the prototyping testbed in this paper can realize radar sensing and communication using the same time, frequency and spatial resources. The designed dual-functional integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) waveform in this work can be easily incorporated into existing communication standards where OFDM is used. The experiment observes a graceful trade-off between radar sensing and communication after comprehensive measurement on communication constellation diagrams and radar beampattern quality. This experiment also reveals the mutual impacts between communication signals using different modulation schemes and radar beampattern performance.