Network-Level ISAC Design: State-of-the-Art, Challenges, and Opportunities

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of network-level ISAC systems, discussing recent advancements, challenges, and future directions for scalable and high-performance integrated sensing and communication in wireless networks.

Contribution

It offers a detailed survey of network-level ISAC architectures, cooperation schemes, and synchronization techniques, highlighting new insights and open challenges for large-scale deployment.

Findings

Analyzes interference management and cooperative sensing and communication performance.

Reviews distributed signaling strategies and key performance metrics.

Identifies synchronization as a critical challenge for practical deployment.

Abstract

The ultimate goal of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) deployment is to provide coordinated sensing and communication services at an unprecedented scale. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of network-level ISAC systems, an emerging paradigm that significantly extends the capabilities of link-level ISAC through distributed cooperation. We first examine recent advancements in network-level ISAC architectures, emphasizing various cooperation schemes and distributed system designs. The sensing and communication (S\&C) performance is analyzed with respect to interference management and cooperative S\&C, offering new insights into the design principles necessary for large-scale networked ISAC deployments. In addition, distributed signaling strategies across different levels of cooperation are reviewed, focusing on key performance metrics such as sensing accuracy and communication quality-of-service (QoS). Next, we explore the key challenges for practical deployment where the critical role of synchronization is also discussed, highlighting advanced over-the-air synchronization techniques specifically tailored for bi-static and distributed ISAC systems. Finally, open challenges and future research directions in network-level ISAC design are identified. The findings and discussions aim to serve as a foundational guideline for advancing scalable, high-performance, and resilient distributed ISAC systems in next-generation wireless networks.