Centimeter-level Geometry Reconstruction and Material Identification in 300 GHz Monostatic Sensing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a high-precision geometry reconstruction and material identification method for indoor THz sensing, achieving centimeter-level accuracy and establishing a material database for improved environment understanding.

Contribution

It presents a novel joint delay and angle estimation algorithm and a THz material database, enabling precise indoor geometry reconstruction and material identification in monostatic THz sensing.

Findings

Achieved 1.75 cm accuracy in geometry reconstruction.

Successfully identified materials as cement and steel.

Demonstrated enhanced sensing capabilities over microwave and millimeter-wave bands.

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technology is envisioned to achieve high communication performance alongside advanced sensing abilities. For various applications of ISAC, accurate environment reconstruction including geometry reconstruction and material identification is critical. This paper presents a highly precise geometry reconstruction algorithm and material identification scheme for a monostatic sensing case in a typical indoor scenario. Experiments are conducted in the frequency range from 290 GHz to 310 GHz using a vector network analyzer (VNA)-based channel sounder by co-locating the transmitter and receiver. A joint delay and angle space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE)-based algorithm is implemented to estimate multipath component (MPC) parameters and the indoor geometry is reconstructed based on the extracted parameters. Furthermore, a geometry-based method is employed to model and remove the spurious path of the corner, reaching an accuracy of 1.75 cm. Additionally, a material database using THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) is established, capturing reflection losses of over 200 common material samples. Applying this database to our monostatic sensing, the measured reflection losses of wall and window frame are accurately identified as cement and steel, respectively. Our results demonstrate the centimeter-level geometry reconstruction and accurate material identification for practical THz ISAC scenarios, which unleash unprecedented sensing potential compared to microwave and millimeter-wave bands.