Optical Integrated Sensing and Communication: Architectures, Potentials and Challenges

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is viewed as a crucial component of future mobile networks and has gained much interest in both academia and industry. Similar to the emergence of radio-frequency (RF) ISAC, the integration of free space optical communication and optical sensing yields optical ISAC (O-ISAC), which is regarded as a powerful complement to its RF counterpart. In this article, we first introduce the generalized system structure of O-ISAC, and then elaborate on three advantages of O-ISAC, i.e., increasing communication rate, enhancing sensing precision, and reducing interference. Next, waveform design and resource allocation of O-ISAC are discussed based on pulse waveform, constant-modulus waveform, and multi-carrier waveform. Furthermore, we put forward future trends and challenges of O-ISAC, which are expected to provide some valuable directions for future research.