Jul 2026· International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks· pp. 495-500· 0 citations· 42 references
Abstract
Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) has emerged as a transformative paradigm for sixth-generation (6G) wireless systems, enabling the convergence of communication and sensing functionalities within a unified framework. By leveraging shared spectrum, hardware, and signal processing techniques, ISAC significantly improves spectral efficiency and system performance while enabling new applications such as autonomous systems, smart cities, and immersive environments. This paper provides a review of recent advances of ISAC, covering its fundamental principles, system model, the latest research and applications. Key challenges and future research directions are also discussed to guide ongoing development in this rapidly evolving field.
Integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) is emerging as a major architectural direction for next-generation wireless systems. By jointly designing environmental sensing and wireless data transmission within a unified framework, ISAC offers the potential for simultaneous gains in spectral efficiency, hardware reuse, energy efficiency, and situational awareness. This paper provides a comprehensive research roadmap for ISAC, tracing its evolution from radar–communication coexistence to dual-function radar–communication architectures, networked sensing infrastructures, and perceptive sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks. The survey is organized around five pillars: information-theoretic foundations, physical-layer design, networked operation, enabling platform technologies, and application domains. It further examines emerging regimes and deployment extensions that challenge conventional assumptions, including near-field operation, terahertz systems, AI-native transceivers, reconfigurable and digital-twin-assisted environments, low-power and backscatter-based sensing, and non-terrestrial ISAC. Across these topics, the paper identifies open gaps, formulates a unified set of grand research challenges, reviews representative prototype and measurement-oriented studies, and outlines both near-term deployment paths and longer-horizon transformative directions. The goal is to provide a coherent reference and roadmap for the continued development of ISAC as a foundation for future wireless, sensing, and cyber-physical systems.
I. F. Akyildiz, Shih-Chun Lin· IEEE Access· 0 citations
A unified technical perspective is provided on current standardization choices, their implementation tradeoffs, and the open challenges shaping network-grade sensing by connecting the evolving 3GPP architecture and radio studies across 5G-Advanced and 6G.
Networked sensing, which jointly exploits observations from multiple distributed nodes, is essential for unlocking the full sensing potential of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). This article introduces multi-UE sensing, a new networked sensing paradigm for future perceptive mobile networks that exploits the correlated sensing observations naturally arising from distributed user equipment devices (UEs) interacting with common targets. Representative uplink, downlink, and hybrid sensing architectures are presented, together with a multi-view signal processing framework encompassing synchronization, correlation-aware parameter estimation, and sensing fusion. Key open challenges, including correlation modelling, target association, sensing information compression, and communication-sensing co-optimization, are also discussed.
J. A. Zhang, Jingying Bao, Kai Wu et al.· 0 citations
Distinct from conventional integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) techniques, breakthroughs in LoRa-aided ISAC achieve hardware-unified sensing and communication capabilities for low-power devices. By combining such a novel technology with wireless power transfer (WPT), it yields wireless powered sensing and communication networks (WPSCNs). Information fusion, a widely adopted technique in such networks, relies heavily on the fresh fused information for effective system decision-making. However, age of information (AoI) is ineffective for measuring freshness of fused information. To tackle this dilemma, a novel metric, age of sensing (AoS), is introduced. Specifically, we study timeliness of a WPSCN, where a fusion center (FC) wirelessly powers sensing nodes (SNs) to collect sensing information from the SNs for generating fused information. Moreover, the impact of multi-cycle sensing on the AoS is first explored in the WPSCNs. We also adopt the adaptive transmission strategy for flexibly reducing the transmission duration. After obtaining a closed-form of the average AoS, it is then minimised by optimising WPT duration, multi-cycle sensing strategy and the SN locations. Ultimately, the numerical results validate the accuracy of our theoretical analysis. The effect of multi-cycle sensing and the superiority of adaptive transmission strategy are also demonstrated. Our findings offer valuable insights for analysing and improving the fusion system timeliness, and provide a theoretical foundation for the practical deployment of the WPSCNs.
Ya-Li Zheng, Shuai Shen, Ziye Xiang et al.· IEEE Transactions on Communi...· 0 citations
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI), reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), and integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is emerging as a key enabler for intelligent, adaptive, and efficient wireless networks in the 6G era. This survey provides a comprehensive and well-structured overview of how AI is revolutionizing RIS-assisted ISAC by enabling dynamic, data-driven control over the radio environment. Through intelligent configuration of RIS, AI facilitates real-time adaptation of signal propagation paths, enhances sensing resolution, and ensures robust communication performance across diverse and dynamic network conditions. The discussion is organized across two major domains: terrestrial networks (TNs) and non-terrestrial networks (NTNs). In TNs, we examine four critical directions: (i) improving EE, (ii) strengthening security, (iii) achieving high sensing accuracy and low communication latency via joint optimization, and (iv) maximizing throughput. In NTN domain, especially within UAV-based platforms, we explore AI-RIS frameworks that support coordinated sensing and communication, reinforce link security in mobile and unpredictable environments, and enhance aerial network capacity through real-time RIS tuning. By bridging both terrestrial and aerial applications, this survey highlights how AI-driven RIS control enables environment-aware, low-latency, and secure ISAC operations. Finally, we identify and analyze key challenges such as managing trade-offs between sensing and communication, generalizing AI models across varied network scenarios, and ensuring scalable, low-complexity real-time deployment. The work concludes with forward-looking insights into future research directions essential for realizing robust and intelligent RIS-assisted ISAC architectures in 6G and beyond.
Shabeer Ahmad, Jinli Zhang, Manzoor Ahmed et al.· Journal of King Saud Univers...· 0 citations
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