HawkRover: An Autonomous mmWave Vehicular Communication Testbed with Multi-sensor Fusion and Deep Learning

Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) have become a transformative technology that can change our daily life. Currently, millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands are identified as the promising CAV connectivity solution. While it can provide high data rate, their realization faces many challenges such as high attenuation during mmWave signal propagation and mobility management. Existing solution has to initiate pilot signal to measure channel information, then apply signal processing to calculate the best narrow beam towards the receiver end to guarantee sufficient signal power. This process takes significant overhead and time, hence not suitable for CAVs. In this study, we propose an autonomous and low-cost testbed to collect extensive co-located mmWave signal and other sensor data such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), cameras, ultrasonic, etc., traditionally for “automated”, to facilitate mmWave vehicular communications. Intuitively, these sensors can build a 3D map around the vehicle and signal propagation path can be estimated, eliminating the iterative process via pilot signals. This multimodal data fusion, together with AI, is expected to bring significant advances in “connected” research.