What’s beyond 5G? 5G advanced and 6G but those are just labels; what advances will we see? One important driver is Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC). So far these functions have been quite distinct but now the ISAC initiative is aiming for tighter co-existence between cellular communication and wireless-based sensing, heading towards communication-assisted sensing and sensing-assisted communication.
At a simple level such integration could reduce hardware and signaling costs through ISAC in standards beyond 5G, however benefits will extend much further. Some major communications enterprises see significant ISAC application opportunities across transportation, healthcare, factory, consumer, and public service applications. Closer to applications we know today, ISAC/beyond 5G offers potential for higher spectrum and energy efficiency in communications between base stations (big to small) and UEs, the “user equipment” catch-all for cars, phones, and any other end-point devices connecting to the cellular network. It also offers the benefits of radar positioning.
Opportunity
The ISAC concept is sufficiently new to challenge finding analyst estimates for the opportunity as a whole. That said, the V2X market as one subset of this space will leverage communication beyond 5G and is expected to show almost 52% growth from 2023 to 2030 (at $9.5B). Meanwhile the drone market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.9% from 2024 to 2029. It seems reasonable to assume that energy efficiencies alone will encourage communication upgrades in phones, tablets and wearables.
Equally enhanced spectrum efficiencies and throughput beyond 5G can help network operators squeeze more efficiency and value from fixed base station investments. Radar positioning adds new value which can be exploited in multiple ways. All good reasons to expect momentum behind transitions to ISAC-based solutions.
Radar Positioning Beyond 5G
An exciting possibility recognizes that signaling from say a base station to a car can act as a radar positioning probe, providing location and velocity information in a return signal back to the base station. The base station can use that information not only to refine beam forming for optimized communication but also to predict how its beam forming algorithm should change as the car continues to move forward, to improve throughput and QoS in the link. More generally these benefits in beyond 5G ISAC will apply to base station connections to UEs, for V2X links in transportation, in warehouse robotics, and in drone navigation.
Conversely ISAC wireless transmission can act as an extended sensor, detecting UEs within its range even if they are not actively communicating with the transmitter. Given multiple antennas there’s an opportunity for a radar positioning function to detect non-transmitting UEs. Based on that information and knowing the UE location, the network can reduce channel state information (CSI) requests or rate at which the UE sends a CSI updates, thereby reducing power consumption for the UE and network overhead.
CSI characterizes how well a signal propagates between transmitter and receiver, encompassing factors which contribute to less than perfect transmission due to power decay with distance and scattering. Sampling CSIs from say multiple cars or other UEs in range enhances information available to determine based on position best throughput configurations as a car continues to move. This radar positioning information can also be a critical complement to autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle management, for example in vehicle platooning.
Technical challenges
3GPP has already started study on use-cases and requirements for ISAC beyond 5G, e.g. in 5G advanced and is looking towards 6G; however detailed requirements are still to be locked down. In the meantime, communications experts including Ceva are experimenting with ideas to maximize radar positioning functionality without compromising communications while also reducing overall cost, size and power consumption.
One challenge is finding effective ways to manage orthogonal signaling so that data communication and radar positioning objectives do not interfere. Another challenge is to manage CSI requests in network sensing. Here research is looking at tradeoffs between power reduction through reduced CSI reports, versus reduced prediction accuracy in beam forming leading to reduced UE performance.
Also radar positioning beyond 5G will require full duplex support (for radar transmit and receive), requiring innovation in both antenna and RF solutions.
Summary
Integrated sensing and communication – ISAC – will introduce the possibility of the wireless network as an extended sensor to expand application possibilities beyond 5G and in 6G through radar positioning-enhanced technologies. Work is already underway in infrastructure, automotive, UE and embedded solutions companies such as Ceva, and within 3GPP, to explore ways this concept can be brought to life and made cost-effective in scalable applications.
The applications described here will provide the early stages of what may become possible with ISAC. The immediate goal is to enhance existing use models with improved throughput at reduced cost and power and to launch multiple applications. Beyond that ISAC visionaries see opportunities to add even more accurate radar positioning enabling other types of sensing such as gesture recognition. ISAC will open a world of new cellular possibilities for us in automotive and many other markets!
Learn more about Ceva’s cellular platforms.
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