Intelligent wireless systems with integrated communications and sensing

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Having led to numerous upgrades in our lives, wireless communication systems continue to carry us towards a future where the physical and the virtual become one. This research program focuses on the three core aspects of future beyond-5G wireless systems: communications, sensing, and their unification. Conceptual and technological breakthroughs in these aspects are crucial for the extreme performance, context-aware vision and high precision sensing that define future wireless systems. The first part of the program is on communication designs with sensing intelligence. The use of GHz/THz frequency band enables high gain antennas with small dimensions, leading to new structures for communications. One typical future scenario is ultra-dense networks with ubiquitous access points equipped with reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs). We will study their transceiver designs and user access. In contrast to current approaches, our focus is on efficiency, low complexity, and true user experience instead of capacity-optimality. We further target at solutions that are autonomous to available context information. The next part is on sensing potential of wireless systems. Beyond-5G systems are featured by high frequency, large bandwidth, RISs and user densification, enabling pervasive sensing with high precision. We will study sensing in wireless systems with communication constraints. Two short-term focuses are blind distributed spectrum sensing and distributed estimation of communications context. We will explore sensing designs that can exploit the proliferation of mobile devices and have low traffic data exchange to limit the burden to the wireless systems. An efficient  sensing process will be established including sampling, data analytics, data exchange and decision-making. The third part is the unification of communications and sensing. Past researches in the communications field and the sensing field have distinct objectives and scopes, restraining their interconnection. In contrast, we will piece together experiences from communications and sensing designs with new structures to derive laws of interaction and tradeoff, through short-term objectives such as the interleaved training and transceiver designs for RIS-assisted ultra-dense systems. We will also explore the alternate "top-down" approach of starting from the grand vision of beyond-5G to break down and materialize essential modules, such as context extraction, QoS diagnosis, and joint design, for the unification. It is high time researchers laid the foundation for beyond-5G systems. We need to rethink how data are collected, processed, transmitted and consumed for a future where the physical and the virtual are seamlessly integrated. The proposed research aims at results in the concept, design, and analysis of future intelligent wireless systems from the core aspects of communications, sensing and their unification. The program will also provide thorough training for HQP at all levels.