NetISAC: Design and performance analysis of network-level ISAC: More than Integration

雷达和通信技术已经独立发展了几十年，导致频谱的广泛相互占用。智慧城市带来了高可靠性的传感和通信（S&C）需求，到2025年，连接设备的数量预计将跃升至270亿。S&C系统的独立开发已不可持续，导致前所未有的频谱和硬件需求。集成传感和通信（ISAC）旨在以硬件、能源、频谱和成本效益的方式为S&C共享无线基础设施。网络级ISAC将实现下一代通信、遥感和事件检测。该提案旨在通过跨学科研究开发新的性能分析和信号处理技术，以使有前途的ISAC网络能够处理几个关键挑战：1)来自S&C操作的干扰的复杂性需要新的信号处理工具；2)ISAC的网络设计不能被视为多小区通信的扩展；3)地面ISAC的有限范围需要与非地面节点集成；4)ISAC信道的动态特性需要新的建模框架。为了解决这些问题，NetISAC将跨多个领域工作，从ISAC网络拓扑的基本限制到网络级干扰管理。为了扩大S&C的覆盖范围，申请人将把他在无人机方面的经验应用到ISAC网络中。最后，将进行概念验证实验来测试所提出的方法。在信号处理和无线通信专家Christos Masouros教授的指导下，申请人将学习ISAC网络的新理论和实验知识。应用程序在波束成形、轨迹优化和S&C协作方面的专业知识记录，以及主群链路级干扰开发和ISAC的领先专业知识，保证了该项目的成功。

Radar and communications technologies have developed independently for decades, resulting in the widespread mutual occupationof the spectrum. Smart cities bring high-reliability sensing and communication (S&C) requirements, with the number of connecteddevices expected to jump to 27 billion by 2025. The independent development of S&C systems is no longer sustainable and leads tounprecedented spectrum and hardware demands. Integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) aim to share wirelessinfrastructures for S&C in hardware-, energy-, spectrum-, and cost-efficient ways. Network-level ISAC is to enable next-generationcommunication, remote sensing, and incident detection. This proposal aims to develop novel performance analysis and signalprocessing techniques to enable promising ISAC networks via interdisciplinary studies, to handle several critical challenges: 1)Complex natures of interference from S&C operations require new signal processing tools, 2) Network design for ISAC cannot betreated as an extension of multi-cell communications, 3) The limited range of terrestrial ISAC necessitates its integration withnonterrestrial nodes, 4) Dynamic natures of ISAC channels necessitate new modelling frameworks. To address these, NetISAC willwork across multiple domains, from fundamental limits to ISAC network topology to network-level interference management. Toenlarge S&C coverage, the applicant will apply his experience in drones to ISAC networks. Finally, proof of concept experiments willbe conducted to test the proposed approaches. Supervised by Prof. Christos Masouros, an expert in signal processing and wirelesscommunications, the applicant will acquire new theoretical and experimental knowledge in ISAC networks. The track record of theapplication's expertise in beamforming, trajectory optimization, and S&C collaboration, with the leading expertise of the host groupin link-level interference exploitation and ISAC, guarantees the success of this project.