Glass fiber-based integrated sensing and communication system for vehicular applications

The rapid evolution of the autonomous driving industry has led to a surge in electronic units and applications, resulting in increased in-vehicle data traffic and higher demands for communication efficiency and security. Meanwhile, safe driving necessitates further development of in-vehicle thermal management systems, as traditional point-type sensors face deployment challenges due to their limited monitoring range. All-glass multimode fibers (AG-MMFs) emerge as an ideal solution for sensing and transmission. An integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system based on AG-MMFs has been proposed and experimentally validated for stable and efficient operation across a broad temperature range from −18°C to 122°C, while maintaining strong tolerance to typical vehicle vibrations and connector misalignments. Utilizing a single commercial OM4 fiber, we achieve error-free PAM-4 transmission up to 100 Gb/s with the aid of forward error correction and precise real-time temperature monitoring over 100 m at the same time. Furthermore, by adopting a looped link structure and a neural network-based denoising algorithm, temperature measuring maintains an average uncertainty and a spatial resolution of 0.1°C and 0.5 m, respectively, even under extreme conditions. Exhibiting such outstanding performance in both transmission and sensing, the ISAC architecture successfully addresses the growing demands for high-capacity in-vehicle networks and distributed thermal monitoring of critical components, while paving the theoretical foundation for “fiber to vehicle.”