Joint Radar and Communications: Architectures, Use Cases, Aspects of Radio Access, Signal Processing, and Hardware

Abstract

Integrated Radar and Communications (JRC) can satisfy the apparent demand for applications based on object detection, tracking, ranging, and positioning. JRC is, therefore, often seen as candidate technology for 6G mobile systems. Implementing JRC will require novel approaches in many research and engineering fields, including protocol design, digital and analog signal processing, and hardware development. The ongoing debates on JRC already include many white papers and research articles ranging in content from very specific technical problems to comprehensive bird's eye-level reviews. This paper represents the work within the Open6GHub research project in Germany, which aims to investigate and implement potential end-to-end solutions for 6G. In this framework, we propose a consolidated vision for potential JRC architectural approaches. The subsequent discussion on integrating radar sensing with communications highlights this technology's state-of-the-art and presents relevant opportunities and challenges.INDEX TERMS 6G, joint communications and sensing (JCAS), joint radar and communications (JRC), integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), radar-communications (RadCom), radio access network (RAN) architecture.