A Reconfigurable Phase-Time Array Transmitter Achieving Keyless Secured Transmission and Multi-Receiver Localization for Low-Latency Joint Communication and Sensing

Abstract

The vast available spectrum at millimeter-wave (mm-Wave)/terahertz (THz) frequencies is envisioned as a key enabler to solve the ever-increasing data rate needs in crowded urban environments and lead the next wireless technology revo- lution. To overcome the high path loss present at mm-Wave/THz, highly directional antenna arrays have become ubiquitous. Their future large-scale deployment will naturally create dense wireless sensor networks, which in-turn enable joint communication and sensing. However, the beamforming of high-directivity antenna arrays relies on real-time precise localization between transmit- ters (TXs) and receivers (RXs) to ensure robustness in dynamic mobile applications. Moreover, traditional digital encryption and decryption at multi-Gbps data rate cause large power and latency overhead, and thus, wireless physical layer security has become a promising solution. In this article, we propose and demonstrate a reconfigurable phase-time array (PTA) TX with prism-like spectral-to-spatial mapping of wideband transmit- ted signals, which achieves keyless physically secured wireless communication and fast multi-RX localization to enable low- latency joint communication and sensing within the same wireless electronics frontend. The PTA realizes reconfigurable spectral-to- spatial mapping by applying both a phase shift and true time delay (TTD) at each array element. This intentionally creates and exploits the array beam squinting effect, such that different frequ