Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) is one new technology under development for Sixth Generation (6G) systems. This paper focuses on creating a simulation pipeline for dynamic vehicular traffic scenarios and a novel approach to reducing wireless communication overhead with a LiDAR-based system. The simulation pipeline can be used to generate data sets for numerous research. Additionally, developed error model for vehicle detection algorithms can be used to identify LiDAR performance with respect to different parameters like LiDAR height, range, and laser point density. A periodic beam index map is developed by capturing antenna azimuth and elevation angles which denote maximum Reference Signal Receive Power (RSRP) for a simulated receiver grid on the road and classifying areas using Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm to reduce the number of Synchronization Signal Blocks (SSBs) that needed to send in Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communication.

This paper investigates the potential to leverage existing 5G NR signals for network-side integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). In general, the synchronization signal block (SSB) is a suitable candidate for always-on downlink sensing, due to its frequent periodical availability and because of its beam-sweeping nature. However, as this work demonstrates, using only the SSB has challenges related to radar ambiguity while being also limited in both distance and velocity resolution due to limited bandwidth and per-beam time duration, respectively. A novel solution is then introduced by combining SSB with downlink control information (DCI) and system information block 1 (SIB1) symbols. The corresponding implications and variants how SIB1 is optimized and configured are discussed, covering both 5G evolution and potential 6G solutions. The performance of the proposed approach is also assessed through realistic numerical evaluations at both 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz network deployments, and shown to yield up to 25 dB suppression in radar peak sidelobe level (PSL) compared to SSB-only based range-velocity profile. Also considerable improvements in the sensing resolution in the order of 120–190% are demonstrated.

5G New Radio (NR) has been a great success story since its introduction. It offers high reliability, low communication latency, flexibility, and efficiency that further enable 5G networks to be used for mission critical applications. Currently, there are specialized networks serving industry verticals that would benefit from the NR properties. Key use cases include communications for critical infrastructure such as railways, public safety, and smart energy and infrastructure. These networks often use dedicated spectrum allocations that are narrower than the original minimum operating bandwidth of NR. In this paper, we describe how new flexibility is being introduced into the NR design to allow operation with bandwidths between about 3 and 5 MHz. As a use case study, we focus on railway communications, and study the co-existence of the Global System for Mobile Communications–Railway (GSM-R) and Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) based on NR during the decade-long migration period. We discuss the changes required for the NR control channels and signaling and study the effect of the changes on the system performance.

The mmWave communication up to 71 GHz is already specified in 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP)5G New Radio (NR), and communication in sub-THz bands is being studied for 6G widely in the academia and industry. Operation with very narrow beamwidths and much higher bandwidths in contrast to Frequency Range 1 (sub-6 GHz) can cater to the high data rate requirements at the expense of extra signal processing burden to overcome the unfavourable conditions such as high attenuation and scattering in the presence of obstacles. Such severe signal power attenuation caused by an obstacle may degrade the network performance due to link failures occurring as a result of line-of-sight (LoS) to non-LoS (NLoS) transitions. These limitations raise the necessity of a sensing system to collect situational awareness data to assist the wireless communication network. This work proposes a method to improve the LoS detection and user localization accuracy using multiple light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors co-located in access points (APs). We also propose an approach to predict the LoS transitions based on static LiDAR maps and the proposed method detected the LoS transition 400ms before its occurrence.

5G New Radio (NR) mmWave operates with narrow beams. Beam-based connections require careful management of beams to ensure a reliable connection, specially when the user has mobility. 5G NR defines beam management procedures to achieve this, at the expense of periodic reporting with increased overheads and resource usage. Concurrently, recent interest in sensing for assisting wireless systems provides an opportunity to extract situational awareness information which can aid in proactive decisions for the network. In this work, we utilize an infrastructure-mounted light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor system simultaneously operating with the wireless system to predict future beam decisions. A recurrent neural network (RNN) based learning model is proposed for the beam prediction, employing tracking information of users facilitated by the LiDARs and beam sequence information from the wireless system. Furthermore, a method for predictive beam management with increased periodicity of the reporting mechanism and aperiodic reporting is analyzed. The results for the considered scenario reveal 86.8% of the resources can be saved compared to the conventional beam reporting procedure, while achieving an 88.7% accuracy for optimal beam decisions.

In this paper we introduce a reliable multicast concept for Device-to-Device (D2D) communication integrated into cellular network. In addition to the introduction of the basic concept, initial simulation results are presented as well. Clustering closely located devices which have local communication needs is a feasible and efficient way of solving the increasing data traffic requirements in the future cellular network. Reliable D2D multicast concept introduced in this paper is designed to be scalable and efficient solution for local communication needs such as file transfer and even streaming services. Due to the network involvement in controlling the local D2D communication, sufficient quality of service can be guaranteed. In addition, due to the flexible mode switching between direct and cellular modes in the integrated operation the service continuity can be provided.

Power control is one of the key functions which are able to co-ordinate the system interference. In this paper, several power control schemes are investigated for a hybrid LTE system, which combines the direct device-to-device (D2D) mode communication and the normal cellular mode communication. In the system study, the power control for the D2D mode communication is emphasized. In general, the utilization of local area transmission for D2D communications provides a better SINR than normal cellular communications. In this case, the proper power control for D2D communications can be a flexible way to improve (and balance) the overall system performance. Naturally, the low power transmission of D2D communications leads to many potential advantages, such as low interference level (to normal cellular users) and low power consumption. From the power control point of view, the low power transmission provides more freedom to tune the Tx power. However, power control is not an efficient solution to avoid the strong mutual (co-channel) interference between different types of UEs. In this case, the join consideration of mode selection, resource scheduling, link adaption and power control is needed.

In this paper, we analyze the challenges of the interference environment in a hybrid network that consists of the device-to-device (D2D) communication based ad-hoc connections and conventional cellular connections. Accordingly, time hopping (TH) based radio resource allocation schemes aiming to improve the robustness of the hybrid network are proposed. The performance improvement even with the simple random TH scheme is considerable, which is validated via extensive simulations. In addition, the simulation results also give some hints on the optimization of the practical TH operation in a hybrid network.

In a cellular network system one way to increase its capacity is to allow direct communication between closely located user devices when they are communicating with each other instead of conveying data from one device to the other via the radio and core network. The problem is then when the network shall assign direct communication mode and when not. In previous works the decision has been done individually per communicating device pair not taking into account other devices and the current state of the network. We derive means for getting optimal communication mode for all devices in the system in terms of system equations. The system equations capture information of the network such as link gains, noise levels, signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratios, etc., as well as communication mode selection for the devices. Using the derived equations performance bounds for the cellular system where D2D communication is an additional communication mode are illustrated via simulations. Further, practical communication mode selection algorithms are used to evaluate their system performance against the achievable bounds. Analysis show the usability of the system equations and the potential of having D2D operation integrated into a cellular system when there is enough local communication occurring.

We study how direct communication within a group of devices, cluster, can improve the performance of a conventional cellular system. The clusters are formed from devices that are close and communicating with each other, for example, sharing data. The clusters share the radio resources among other devices in the system thus creating a mixed network system comprising directly communicating devices and devices having radio links to and from the base stations. In this kind of a system the additional challenge is to decide when clusters shall use direct communication and when conventional cellular radio links to communicate with each other. Here, in addition to clustering concept description we provide new means to analyse achievable system performance when clustering communication is integrated into a cellular network and especially into an interference limited system.