Ubiquitous Integrated Sensing and Communications for Massive MIMO LEO Satellite Systems

TL;DR

This paper explores the integration of sensing and communication in massive MIMO LEO satellite systems for 6G, highlighting recent advances, challenges, and future research directions.

Contribution

It extends ISAC concepts to LEO satellite systems with massive MIMO, providing an overview, recent advances, and identifying key challenges and future directions.

Findings

ISAC can enhance spectrum efficiency in LEO satellite systems

Massive MIMO enables high-capacity LEO satellite communications

Challenges include hardware complexity and signal processing

Abstract

The next sixth generation (6G) networks are envisioned to integrate sensing and communications in a single system, thus greatly improving spectrum utilization and reducing hardware costs. Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications combined with massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology holds significant promise in offering ubiquitous and seamless connectivity with high data rates. Existing integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) studies mainly focus on terrestrial systems, while operating ISAC in massive MIMO LEO satellite systems is promising to provide high-capacity communication and flexible sensing ubiquitously. In this paper, we first give an overview of LEO satellite systems and ISAC and consider adopting ISAC in the massive MIMO LEO satellite systems. Then, the recent research advances are presented. A discussion on related challenges and key enabling technologies follows. Finally, we point out some open issues and promising research directions.