Collaborative Research: ECCS-CCSS Core: Resonant-Beam based Optical-Wireless Communication

This project deals with innovative optical wireless communications leveraging the resonant beam technology, where an infrared light beam is established in open air between a transmitter and a receiver in an optical cavity configuration. While progress has been made on resonant-beam based wireless charging, high-data-rate communication through the resonant-beam channel remains largely unexplored. The unique channel characteristics pose grand challenges due to the inherent nonlinearity of the lasing mechanism, and the large delay spread emerging from the oscillatory signaling operation. The project will pursue channel modelling and transceiver designs through both model-based and data-driven learning approaches and will also develop an experimental testbed for performance evaluation. Thanks to the promise of data communication through the “wireless fiber” link, and the fact that there is no interference to and from coexisting radio devices, the technology developed in this project will find emerging “killer applications” requiring high data rate and ultra-low-latency latency such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Advances from this project will contribute to smart homes, smart hospitals, and smart manufacturing, and will make a profound impact to the society. This project will educate undergraduate and graduate students, improve the participation of under-represented groups, and outreach to high school students. The resonant beam channel is distinct from all channels investigated so far, including wireless infrared, visible light, radio channels including millimeter Wave and TeraHz. The transformative research is performed along three intertwined thrusts. (i) Self-driven nonlinear and time-varying Volterra series along with (multi-) kernel generalizations will be explored for nonlinear channel modelling and learning, for both the downlink and the uplink between the access point and the user equipment or sensors; (ii) Transceiver designs will start with legacy waveforms on-off-keying (OOK) and orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) for resilience to the nonlinearity and large-delay spread of the resonant beam channel. Novel end-to-end signal designs will be further investigated through artificial-intelligence (AI) tools; and (iii) Distinct optical designs with the inclusion of an adaptive optical element such as a spatial light modulator (SLM) will be pursued, which allows the system to scale to multiple users/clients, compensate for environmental disturbances, and support information transfer. Experimental data will be collected to support algorithm design, and performance validation. Investigation of this uncharted territory will leverage interdisciplinary approaches at the confluence of optical engineering, wireless communications, signal processing, and statistical learning. Novel channel models and signaling waveforms will be delivered to enrich the toolbox of wireless communications and signal processing with algorithms and the corresponding state-of-the-art communication prototypes. 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.