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Joint communication and radar/radio sensing (JCAS), also known as dual-function radar communications , enables the integration of communication and radio sensing into one system, sharing a single transmitted signal. The perceptive mobile network (PMN) is a natural evolution of JCAS from simple point-to-point links to a mobile/cellular network with integrated radio-sensing capability. In this article, we present a system architecture that unifies three types of sensing, investigate the required modifications to existing mobile networks, and exemplify the signals applicable to sensing. We also provide a review to stimulate research problems and potential solutions, including mutual information, joint design and optimization for waveform and antenna grouping, clutter suppression, sensing parameter estimation and pattern recognition, and networked sensing under the cellular topology.

Suppression of undesired non-information bearing multipaths, aka clutter, from received signals is a key process for sensing parameter estimation in the perceptive mobile network, a next generation mobile network that integrates radar sensing into communications. In this correspondence, we propose a novel clutter suppression method based on the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and expectation maximization (EM) estimation, which can achieve fast and effective clutter estimation requiring only a small number of samples. We then apply a one-dimension (1D) compressive sensing (CS) based sensing algorithm to extract useful channel information after removing the estimated clutter. Simulation results are provided for the proposed solution and existing techniques, and validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Radio sensing can be integrated with communication in what the authors call future perceptive mobile networks. Due to the complicated signal structure, it is challenging to estimate sensing parameters such as delay, angle of arrival, and Doppler when joint communication and radar/radio sensing is applied in perceptive mobile networks. Radio sensing with signals compatible with a fifth-generation (5G) new radio standard using one-dimension (1D) to 3D compressive sensing (CS) techniques under 5G channel conditions is studied. In the case of 1D–3D CS techniques, they formulate the parameter estimation as a sparse signal recovery problem. These algorithms demonstrate respective advantages, but also show shortcomings in dealing with clustered channels. To effectively exploit the cluster structure in multipath channels, they also propose a 2D cluster Kronecker CS algorithm for significantly improved sensing parameter estimation via introducing a prior probability distribution. Simulation results are provided and they focus the respective advantages and disadvantages of these techniques that validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

In this paper, we develop a framework for a novel perceptive mobile/cellular network that integrates radar sensing function into the mobile communication network. We propose a unified system platform that enables downlink and uplink sensing, sharing the same transmitted signals with communications. We aim to tackle the fundamental sensing parameter estimation problem in perceptive mobile networks, by addressing two key challenges associated with sophisticated mobile signals and rich multipath in mobile networks. To extract sensing parameters from orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and spatial division multiple access (SDMA) communication signals, we propose two approaches to formulate it to problems that can be solved by compressive sensing techniques. Most sensing algorithms have limits on the number of multipath signals for their inputs. To reduce the multipath signals, as well as removing unwanted clutter signals, we propose a background subtraction method based on simple recursive computation, and provide a closed-form expression for performance characterization. The effectiveness of these methods is validated in simulations., Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, Journal paper

There is growing interest in integrating communication and radar sensing into one system. However, very limited results are reported on how to realize sensing using complicated mobile signals when joint communication and radar sensing (JCAS) is applied to mobile networks. This paper studies radar sensing using one-dimension (1D) to 3D compressive sensing (CS) techniques, referring to signals compatible with latest fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) standard. We demonstrate that radio sensing using both downlink and uplink 5G signals can be realized with reasonable performance using these CS techniques, and highlight the respective advantages and disadvantages of these techniques.1

In this paper, we consider an alternative low-cost and flexible solution of using an analog antenna array for radio sensing at the base station receiver in the recently proposed perceptive mobile networks. We provide receiver beamforming design, and advanced compressive sensing (CS) signal processing techniques for sensing parameter estimation in a multiuser-MIMO (MU-MIMO) communications system. Simulation results are provided and validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution and sensing algorithms.

We propose signal stripping based approaches for estimating detailed channel composition parameters for sensing in the recently proposed perceptive mobile networks where simultaneous communication and radar sensing is performed. Via reconstructing a (differentiated) channel matrix, we obtain a signal model which can be solved by conventional compressive sensing (CS) techniques. Parameter estimation methods based on a 1-D CS algorithm are proposed and their effectiveness is validated by provided simulation results.