OneDegree

Over the past decade, wireless 4G/LTE technology as well as WiFi technology has transformed society, giving rise to the mobile internet and associated billion dollar industries. The next generation of 5G/6G wireless technologies is expected to have a similar transformative impact, creating industries which have not yet been envisaged. At the center of this is enabling and integrating new capabilities into wireless networks, and thereby enabling them to provide services beyond communications.

Surprisingly, visible light cameras have emerged as a primary and essential function of smartphones, tablets and other communication-enabled mobile devices. Imaging provides spatio-temporal 3D understanding of the environment and the relative relationship between the device and the environment, enabling a host of novel capabilities that can exploit this information. While the high directionality and resolution of visible light imaging has important advantages, it also presents challenges. Visible light cameras need to be held and pointed at the scenes of interest in order to obtain images and their performance is significantly dependent on environmental conditions such as lighting and ambient weather. If 3D spatio-temporal information can be obtained using network imaging without requiring user participation, devices can sense the environment as they communicate. This is a game-changing capability.

This multidisciplinary research project is called ‘OneDegree’ to highlight the importance of reaching the critical angular resolution for imaging using future-generation wireless communication networks. The technical objectives of this project are: (a) development of the foundational theoretical framework to study the joint imaging and communications on a mmWave (millimeter wave) wireless communications network and determine the fundamental limits to imaging using these networks, (b) development of systems and methods to achieve and surpass one degree angular resolution, (c) fabricate a custom mmWave front-end chipset and demonstrate imaging using communication networks, and (d) collect a dataset covering smart-home and smart-city contexts.

Funding Support: The research is supported by grants from NSF (Grant CNS-1956297).