Integrated Sensing and Communications: Recent Advances and Ten Open Challenges

• Published in: IEEE internet of things journal Vol. 11; no. 11; pp. 19094 - 19120
• Main Authors: Lu, Shihang, Liu, Fan, Li, Yunxin, Zhang, Kecheng, Huang, Hongjia, Zou, Jiaqi, Li, Xinyu, Dong, Yuxiang, Dong, Fuwang, Zhu, Jia, Xiong, Yifeng, Yuan, Weijie, Cui, Yuanhao, Hanzo, Lajos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.06.2024; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Cellular communication; Clock synchronization; Information theory; integrated sensing and communications (ISACs); Internet of Things; Internet of Things (IoT); Management methods; network and application; performance limitations; Performance measurement; Radar; Resource management; Robot sensing systems; Sensors; System analysis and design; system design; Systems design; Wireless communication; Wireless networks; Wireless sensor networks
• ISSN: 2327-4662; 2327-4662
• DOI: 10.1109/JIOT.2024.3361173

It is anticipated that integrated sensing and communications (ISACs) would be one of the key enablers of next-generation wireless networks (such as beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G) for supporting a variety of emerging applications. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of the recent advances in ISAC systems, with a particular focus on their foundations, physical-layer system design, networking aspects, and ISAC applications. Furthermore, we discuss the corresponding open questions of the above that emerged in each issue. Hence, we commence with the information theory of sensing and communications (S&C), followed by the information-theoretic limits of ISAC systems by shedding light on the fundamental performance metrics. Next, we discuss their clock synchronization and phase offset problems, the associated Pareto-optimal signaling strategies, as well as the associated super-resolution physical-layer ISAC system design. Moreover, we envision that ISAC ushers in a paradigm shift for the future cellular networks relying on network sensing, transforming the classic cellular architecture, cross-layer resource management methods, and transmission protocols. In ISAC applications, we further highlight the security and privacy issues of wireless sensing. Finally, we close by studying the recent advances in a representative ISAC use case, namely, the multiobject-multitask (MOMT) recognition problem using wireless signals.