Cooperative ISAC Networks: Opportunities and Challenges

Meng, Kaitao, Masouros, Christos, Petropulu, Athina P. and Hanzo, Lajos (2024) Cooperative ISAC Networks: Opportunities and Challenges. IEEE Wireless Communications. (In Press)

Record type: Article

Abstract

The integration of sensing and communication(ISAC) emerges as a cornerstone technology for the sixth generation era, seamlessly incorporating sensing functionality into wireless networks as a native capability. The main challenges inefficient ISAC are constituted by its limited sensing and communication (S&C) coverage, as well as severe inter-cell interference. Network-level ISAC relying on multi-cell cooperation is capable of effectively expanding both the S&C coverage and of providing extra degrees of freedom (DoF) for realizing increased integration gains between S&C. In this work, we provide new considerations for ISAC networks, including new metrics, the optimization of the DoF, cooperation regimes, and highlight new S&C tradeoffs. Then, we discuss a suite of cooperative S&C architectures both at the task, as well as data, and signal levels. Furthermore, the interplay between S&C at the network level is investigated and promising research directions are outlined.

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Integrated Sensing and Communication Networks Opportunities and Challenges - Accepted Manuscript

Available under License University of Southampton Accepted Manuscript Licence.

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