Dispersion compensation in mm-wave communication over plastic waveguide using OFDM

A millimeter-wave communication system in an automobile, comprising:

• a transmitter in the automobile, configured to be connected to a first end of a plastic waveguide in the automobile that is transmissive at millimeter-wave frequencies, the plastic waveguide having a propagation parameter dominated by waveguide dispersion and that varies with frequency at the millimeter-wave frequencies, the transmitter configured to generate a millimeter-wave signal comprising multiple sub-carriers that are modulated with data, wherein each sub-carrier is modulated with a respective portion of the data and is subjected to only a respective fraction of a variation in the propagation parameter, wherein a number of the subcarriers is defined by the waveguide dispersion of the plastic waveguide and a carrier frequency offset of the transmitter, and to transmit the millimeter-wave signal into the first end of the plastic waveguide;
• and
• a receiver in the automobile, configured to be connected to a second end of the plastic waveguide in the automobile, to receive the millimeter-wave signal from the second end of the plastic waveguide, and to extract the data from the multiple sub-carriers;
• wherein a channel estimation dynamically estimates a channel response of the plastic waveguide and of in-line connectors in response to mechanical vibrations in the automobile, wherein the plastic waveguide is connected between the transmitter and the receiver and the in-line connectors connect multiple plastic waveguide sections of the plastic waveguide, wherein an adaptive equalizer compensates the estimated channel response of the plastic waveguide and the in-line connectors based on the channel estimation, and wherein a duration of a payload packet of the millimeter-wave signal is selected to be less than a coherence time of the plastic waveguide.