Joint Communication, Sensing, and Localization in Airborne Applications: Waveform Design and Multi-Mode Multi-Port Antennas

Abstract

The anticipated trends in mobility, either autonomous driving or urban air mobility (UAM), require wireless services to achieve mandatory reliability and safety levels. The number of wireless systems already in-use, especially airborne, occupy regulated spectra. In order to mitigate the impact of a large number of systems mounted to airborne platforms, we propose to combine enabling techniques. These include the joint waveform design, multi-mode multi-port antennas (M3PAs), and appropriate beamforming techniques for joint communication, sensing and localization (JCSL). Our study finds that employing DFT-spread OFDM results in a more consistent radar performance compared to conventional OFDM, highlighting a novel application of this waveform design in JCSL systems. M3PAs are explored as a candidate system for performing JCSL using a single antenna radiator. It is shown how the orthogonality properties of M3PAs are beneficial for avoiding crosstalk in JCSL. We therefore review mature and actively employed techniques and discuss the applicability of M3PAs and novel waveform designs for JCSL. This study aims to conduct a thorough analysis of current systems in operation. Furthermore, design concepts that facilitate the implementation of the JCSL concept in UAM and airborne applications are introduced and discussed.

Keywords

• Air safety
• antenna arrays
• antenna radiation patterns
• autonomous aerial vehicles
• direction-of-arrival estimation
• joint communication