Integrated Sensing and Communications Over the Years: An Evolution Perspective

Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) enables efficient spectrum utilization and reduces hardware costs for beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G networks, facilitating intelligent applications that require both high-performance communication and precise sensing capabilities. This survey provides a comprehensive review of the evolution of ISAC over the years. We examine the expansion of the spectrum across RF and optical ISAC, highlighting the role of advanced technologies, along with key challenges and synergies. We further discuss the advancements in network architecture from single-cell to multi-cell systems, emphasizing the integration of collaborative sensing and interference mitigation strategies. Moreover, we analyze the progress from single-modal to multi-modal sensing, with a focus on the integration of edge intelligence to enable real-time data processing, reduce latency, and enhance decision-making. Finally, we extensively review standardization efforts by 3GPP, IEEE, and ITU, examining the transition of ISAC-related technologies and their implications for the deployment of 6G networks.

Deterministic and Statistical Analysis of the DoF of Continuous Linear Arrays in the Near Field

This paper examines the number of communication modes, that is, the degrees of freedom (DoF), in a wireless setup comprising a small continuous linear intelligent antenna array in the near field of a large one. The framework allows for any orientations between the arrays and any positions in a two-dimensional space assuming that the transmitting array is placed at the origin. Therefore, apart from the length of the two continuous arrays, four key parameters determine the DoF and are hence considered in the analysis: the Cartesian coordinates of the center of the receiving array and two angles that model the rotation of each array around its center. The paper starts with the calculation of the deterministic DoF for a generic geometric setting, which extends beyond the widely studied paraxial case. Subsequently, a stochastic geometry framework is proposed to study the statistical DoF, as a first step towards the investigation of the system-level performance in near field networks. Numerical results applied to millimeter wave networks reveal the large number of DoF provided by near-field communications and unveiled key system-level insights.

Survey on Beyond Diagonal RIS Enabled 6G Wireless Networks: Fundamentals, Recent Advances, and Challenges

Beyond Diagonal Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (BD-RIS) represent a groundbreaking innovation in sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks, enabling unprecedented control over wireless propagation environments compared to conventional diagonal RIS (D-RIS). This survey provides a comprehensive analysis of BD-RIS, detailing its architectures, operational principles, and mathematical modeling while highlighting its performance benefits. BD-RIS classifications, including single-connected, fully-connected, and group-connected architectures, and their reflective, transmissive, hybrid, and multi-sector operating modes are examined. Recent advances in BD-RIS-enabled 6G networks are reviewed, focusing on critical areas such as channel estimation, sum-rate and spectral efficiency optimization, energy efficiency enhancement, and security. The survey identifies fundamental challenges in BD-RIS research, including hardware design limitations, adaptive channel estimation, and the impact of non-ideal hardware effects. Future research directions for BD-RIS are proposed, emphasizing the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), joint optimization of communication and sensing, and enhanced physical layer security (PLS). This study concludes by underscoring BD-RIS's transformative potential to redefine 6G wireless networks, offering valuable insights and lessons for future research and development.

RiLoCo: An ISAC-oriented AI Solution to Build RIS-empowered Networks

The advance towards 6G networks comes with the promise of unprecedented performance in sensing and communication capabilities. The feat of achieving those, while satisfying the ever-growing demands placed on wireless networks, promises revolutionary advancements in sensing and communication technologies. As 6G aims to cater to the growing demands of wireless network users, the implementation of intelligent and efficient solutions becomes essential. In particular, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), also known as Smart Surfaces, are envisioned as a transformative technology for future 6G networks. The performance of RISs when used to augment existing devices is nevertheless largely affected by their precise location. Suboptimal deployments are also costly to correct, negating their low-cost benefits. This paper investigates the topic of optimal RISs diffusion, taking into account the improvement they provide both for the sensing and communication capabilities of the infrastructure while working with other antennas and sensors. We develop a combined metric that takes into account the properties and location of the individual devices to compute the performance of the entire infrastructure. We then use it as a foundation to build a reinforcement learning architecture that solves the RIS deployment problem. Since our metric measures the surface where given localization thresholds are achieved and the communication coverage of the area of interest, the novel framework we provide is able to seamlessly balance sensing and communication, showing its performance gain against reference solutions, where it achieves simultaneously almost the reference performance for communication and the reference performance for localization.

Hiding in Plain Sight: RIS-Aided Target Obfuscation in ISAC

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has been identified as a promising technology for the sixth generation (6G) of communication networks. Target privacy in ISAC is essential to ensure that only legitimate sensors can detect the target while keeping it hidden from malicious ones. In this paper, we consider a downlink reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted ISAC system capable of protecting a sensing region against an adversarial detector. The RIS consists of both reflecting and sensing elements, adaptively changing the element assignment based on system needs. To achieve this, we minimize the maximum sensing signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) at the adversarial detector within sample points in the sensing region, by optimizing the transmit beamformer at the base station, the RIS phase shift matrix, the received beamformer at the RIS, and the division between reflecting and absorptive elements at the RIS, where the latter function as sensing elements. At the same time, the system is designed to maintain a minimum sensing SINR at each monitored location, as well as minimum communication SINR for each user. To solve this challenging optimization problem, we develop an alternating optimization approach combined with a successive convex approximation based method tailored for each subproblem. Our results show that the proposed approach achieves a 25 dB reduction in the maximum sensing SINR at the adversarial detector compared to scenarios without sensing area protection. Also, the optimal RIS element assignment can further improve sensing protection by 3 dB over RISs with fixed element configuration.

Beamforming and Waveform Optimization for RF Wireless Power Transfer with Beyond Diagonal Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

Radio frequency (RF) wireless power transfer (WPT) is a promising technology to seamlessly charge low-power devices, but its low end-to-end power transfer efficiency remains a critical challenge. To address the latter, low-cost transmit/radiating architectures, e.g., based on reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), have shown great potential. Beyond diagonal (BD) RIS is a novel branch of RIS offering enhanced performance over traditional diagonal RIS (D-RIS) in wireless communications, but its potential gains in RF-WPT remain unexplored. Motivated by this, we analyze a BD-RIS-assisted single-antenna RF-WPT system to charge a single rectifier, and formulate a joint beamforming and multi-carrier waveform optimization problem aiming to maximize the harvested power. We propose two solutions relying on semi-definite programming for fully connected BD-RIS and an efficient low-complexity iterative method relying on successive convex approximation. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithms converge to a local optimum and that adding transmit sub-carriers or RIS elements improves the harvesting performance. We show that the transmit power budget impacts the relative power allocation among different sub-carriers depending on the rectifier's operating regime, while BD-RIS shapes the cascade channel differently for frequency-selective and flat scenarios. Finally, we verify by simulation that BD-RIS and D-RIS achieve the same performance under pure far-field line-of-sight conditions (in the absence of mutual coupling). Meanwhile, BD-RIS outperforms D-RIS as the non-line-of-sight components of the channel become dominant.

Downlink Multiuser Communications Relying on Flexible Intelligent Metasurfaces

A flexible intelligent metasurface (FIM) is composed of an array of low-cost radiating elements, each of which can independently radiate electromagnetic signals and flexibly adjust its position through a 3D surface-morphing process. In our system, an FIM is deployed at a base station (BS) that transmits to multiple single-antenna users. We formulate an optimization problem for minimizing the total downlink transmit power at the BS by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming and the FIM's surface shape, subject to an individual signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraint for each user as well as to a constraint on the maximum morphing range of the FIM. To address this problem, an efficient alternating optimization method is proposed to iteratively update the FIM's surface shape and the transmit beamformer to gradually reduce the transmit power. Finally, our simulation results show that at a given data rate the FIM reduces the transmit power by about $3$ dB compared to conventional rigid 2D arrays.

Stacked Intelligent Metasurface Enabled Near-Field Multiuser Beamfocusing in the Wave Domain

Intelligent surfaces represent a breakthrough technology capable of customizing the wireless channel cost-effectively. However, the existing works generally focus on planar wavefront, neglecting near-field spherical wavefront characteristics caused by large array aperture and high operation frequencies in the terahertz (THz). Additionally, the single-layer reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) lacks the signal processing ability to mitigate the computational complexity at the base station (BS). To address this issue, we introduce a novel stacked intelligent metasurfaces (SIM) comprised of an array of programmable metasurface layers. The SIM aims to substitute conventional digital baseband architecture to execute computing tasks with ultra-low processing delay, albeit with a reduced number of radio-frequency (RF) chains and low-resolution digital-to-analog converters. In this paper, we present a SIM-aided multiuser multiple-input single-output (MU-MISO) near-field system, where the SIM is integrated into the BS to perform beamfocusing in the wave domain and customize an end-to-end channel with minimized inter-user interference. Finally, the numerical results demonstrate that near-field communication achieves superior spatial gain over the far-field, and the SIM effectively suppresses inter-user interference as the wireless signals propagate through it.

A Tractable Closed-Form Approximation of the Ergodic Rate in Poisson Cellular Networks

The employment of stochastic geometry for the analysis and design of ultra dense networks (UDNs) has provided significant insights into network densification. In addition to the characterization of the network performance and behavior, these tools can also be exploited toward solving complex optimization problems that could maximize the capacity benefits arising in UDNs. However, this is preconditioned on the existence of tractable closed form expressions for the considered figures of merit. In this course, the present paper introduces an accurate approximation for the moment generating function (MGF) of the aggregate other-cell interference created by base stations whose positions follow a Poisson point process of given spatial density. Given the pivotal role of the MGF of the aggregate interference in stochastic geometry and the tractability of the derived MGF, the latter can be employed to substantially simplify ensuing stochastic geometry analyses. Subsequently, the present paper employs the introduced MGF to provide closed form expressions for the downlink ergodic capacity for the interference limited case, and validates the accuracy of these expressions by the use of extensive Monte Carlo simulations. The derived expressions depend on the density of users and base stations, setting out a densification road map for network operators and designers of significant value.

State of the Art on Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces: Communication, Sensing and Computing in the Wave Domain

Stacked intelligent metasurface (SIM) is an emerging technology that capitalizes on reconfigurable metasurfaces for several applications in wireless communications. SIM is considered an enabler for integrating communication, sensing and computing in a unique platform. In this paper, we offer a survey on the state of the art of SIM for wireless communications.