The combination of sensing and communication functionalities on the same electronic device is the key to autonomous sensing applications in... Show moreThe combination of sensing and communication functionalities on the same electronic device is the key to autonomous sensing applications in the transportation industry, including driverless vehicles and structural health monitoring (SHM) of aero-vehicles. Due to the limited availability of spectral and hardware resources, there is a need for resource sharing between sensing and communication systems. This is achieved by the efficient integration of sensing and communication functions through a unified design of both systems into smart sensors. To that end, a multi-modality approach is employed in this research to design multi-functional systems at two different bands of the frequency spectrum, namely radio and acoustic frequencies.First, a radio-frequency (RF) software-defined system capable to support radar sensing and RF communication is proposed for use in modern interconnected automotive applications such as driverless vehicles. The proposed RF radar is designed on a software-defined homodyne transceiver prototype capable of radio communication. The system is implemented in the S band over a narrow frequency bandwidth of 34 MHz between 3.550 GHz and 3.584 GHz. Experimental measurements show that the designed radar sensor can measure short-range targets with a range accuracy of less than 21 cm.An acoustic sensing and communication system is developed in parallel for use in autonomous SHM monitoring of aero-vehicles. The proposed communication system uses M-ary time-reversal pulse position modulation (M-TRPPM) as the modulation scheme for dispersion compensated wireless communication across the elastic channel. The time reversal based time division multiple access (TR-TDMA) protocol is introduced to regulate channel access by multiple sensors. Simulation and experimental validation demonstrate that the designed system, using an excitation signal generated by a PZT sensor disc at 300 kHz resonant frequency, is capable of reliable data transmission with a bit error rate (BER) approximating zero at low data rates of a few kilobits per seconds. Show less
