Software-Defined MIMO OFDM Joint Radar-Communication Platform with Fully Digital mmWave Architecture

Abstract

Large-scale deployment of connected vehicles with cooperative sensing and maneuvering technologies increases the demand for vehicle-to-everything communication (V2X) band in 5.9 GHz. Besides the V2X spectrum, larger millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands at 24 and 77 GHz can be leveraged to supplement V2X communication and support high data rates for emerging broadband applications. For this purpose, joint radar-communication (JRC) systems have been proposed in the literature to enable both functions to be executed simultaneously using the same waveform and hardware. In this work, we present a software-defined multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) JRC with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for the 24 GHz mmWave band. We implement a real-time operating full-duplex JRC platform using commercial software-defined radios and custom-built mmWave front-ends, leveraging a fully digital MIMO architecture. With this setup, we demonstrate simultaneous data transmission and high-resolution radar imaging capabilities of MIMO OFDM JRC in the mmWave band.