MRR-Based Line-Laser Scanning for Reliable Vehicular Positioning and Optical Communication

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel tracking-free optical system for vehicular sensing, positioning, and communication that uses structured line lasers and retroreflectors to achieve wide-area coverage and high reliability without mechanical tracking.

Contribution

It introduces a new optical JSPC system combining line-laser scanning with retroreflector arrays and an analytical framework for optimizing coverage and power efficiency.

Findings

Enhanced spatial coverage uniformity

Improved link stability and reliability

Effective simulation results demonstrating system performance

Abstract

High-speed vehicular environments require optical systems capable of joint sensing, positioning, and communication (JSPC) without mechanical tracking. Existing optical and integrated sensing-communication approaches often rely on point-source emitters or camera-based receivers, limiting spatial coverage and update rate under highway dynamics. This work introduces a new class of tracking-free optical JSPC systems that combine structured line-laser illumination with modulating retroreflector (MRR) arrays on vehicles. Two orthogonal line lasers perform synchronized longitudinal and transverse scanning to provide continuous, wide-area coverage across the roadway. A coverage-driven analytical framework models the coupling between beam divergence, scan geometry, and dwell-time allocation, enabling joint evaluation of sensing reliability and communication quality. An optimization scheme is developed to adapt scanning and divergence parameters for uniform coverage and power efficiency. Simulation results demonstrate significant improvements in spatial coverage uniformity, link stability, and reliability within a fixed scan period. These results establish a practical pathway toward scalable, turbulence-resilient optical architectures for next-generation vehicular JSPC networks.