Integration of Radar Sensing into Communications with Asynchronous Transceivers

TL;DR

This paper reviews techniques to address clock asynchronism in integrating radar sensing with communication networks, highlighting solutions and open challenges for efficient, hardware-light sensing.

Contribution

It provides a systematic overview of existing and potential solutions for clock asynchronism in radar-communication integration, including analysis of their advantages and open problems.

Findings

Existing solutions include global reference clocks and node/network-based techniques.

Open problems involve synchronization accuracy and scalability.

Insights into future research directions for asynchronous radar-communication systems.

Abstract

Clock asynchronism is a critical issue in integrating radar sensing into communication networks. It can cause ranging ambiguity and prevent coherent processing of dis-continuous measurements in integration with asynchronous transceivers. Should it be resolved, sensing can be efficiently realized in communication networks, requiring little network infrastructure and hardware changes. This article provides a systematic overview of existing and potential new techniques for tackling this fundamental problem. We first review existing solutions, including using a fine-tuned global reference clock, and single-node-based and network-based techniques. We then examine open problems and research opportunities, offering insights into what may be better realized in each of the three solution areas.