Objective 1: Optical Wireless Communication for V2V and V2I
Progress has been made in enabling high-rate optical wireless links between vehicles and infrastructure. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication beyond 100 m has been demonstrated using high-flux LEDs, supporting real-time LiDAR point-cloud transmission. Vehicle-to-infrastructure links have reached 1 Gb/s over 50 m using beamformer technology, with potential for 10 Gb/s at longer distances as chip-scale beamformers mature. A fiber–wireless–fiber bridge has also been validated over 63 m, showing 10 Gb/s performance with strong resilience to misalignment and turbulence.
Objective 2: Connected LiDAR and RaDAR for Joint Sensing and Communication
An enhanced MEMS-based LiDAR prototype has been built and tested, operating both in sensing mode (camera-like field of view with dense point clouds) and in communication mode with free-space optical transmission up to 200 m. In parallel, vehicular radar operating at 77–79 GHz has been tested, achieving detection ranges up to 150 m and demonstrating combined sensing and communication. Current throughput is below the 1 Gb/s target but ongoing optimization and laboratory evaluation aim to close this gap.
Objective 3: Tunable Transmitters and Receivers for 50–100 Gb/s Fronthaul
Work is advancing on quasi-coherent ASICs and photonic integrated circuits. First-generation 50 Gb/s ASICs are under test, with second-generation 50 Gb/s and first-generation 100 Gb/s ASICs already designed. Integrated quasi-coherent receiver photonic chips with 40 GHz and 100 GHz bandwidth photoreceptors have been developed, with wafer bonding, backend fabrication, and packaging underway. Integration of a tunable on-chip laser remains in progress.
Objective 4: SDN-Enabled Photonic Switching
A new generation of optical switches is being developed to extend software-defined networking down to Layer 1. A 16×16 switch matrix has been fabricated on a low-loss platform and is now entering testing with dedicated driver electronics. On the software side, time-slotted operation is being validated, ensuring reliable, out-of-order-free transmission at sub-microsecond reconfiguration speeds.
Objective 5: AI-Assisted Network Control
An AI-powered SDN control system is under development to optimize the programmability and energy efficiency of 6G-EWOC networks. Device-level power models and energy-aware routing have already demonstrated tangible reductions in power use. End-to-end service provisioning has been shown in testbeds in under 10 seconds, and efforts are ongoing to adapt this for quasi-coherent transceivers and optical switches. A heuristic routing algorithm is in place, while deep reinforcement learning is being pursued for further energy efficiency gains.
Objective 6: AI Applications for Autonomous Vehicles
The project advances Cooperative Perception, enabling vehicles and infrastructure sensors to collaboratively build accurate environmental reconstructions. A vehicle-mounted sensor suite is operational, while roadside multimodal sensors are being deployed. Low-parallax data fusion has been achieved, and work is progressing on spatial registration and time synchronization. The Cooperative Perception algorithm already outperforms state of the art, reaching over 90% accuracy in synthetic datasets and strong gains in real-world data.
