Call for Papers

Spectrum scarcity and the bandwidth requirements of key emerging applications require we re-examine spectral and signaling resource consumption in co-resident sensing and communication systems. Conventionally, most commercial communication systems are accommodated in the sub-6 GHz band and expected to achieve harmonious coexistence with a variety of existing sensing systems such as radars for air traffic control (ATC), weather observation, geophysical monitoring and surveillance for defense and security. More recently, larger swaths of mmWave spectrum have been made accessible for 5G deployment. Unfortunately, this further leads to increased congestion of the frequency spectrum where existing radar and other sensing systems reside. So, as a step beyond simply sharing the spectrum, the co- design of sensing and communication functionalities seems prudent. Such an approach allows considerable gains in terms of spectral, energy, hardware and cost efficiency. This type of research, normally referred to as integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), is a paradigm change where the previously competing sensing and communication operations can be jointly optimized via the shared use of a single hardware platform and a joint signal processing framework. It is noteworthy that these ideas have already been applied to a number of novel applications including vehicular networks, indoor positioning and covert communications. In addition to academic research, industrial effort on ISAC is also well-underway. In particular, ISAC has been recognized as an emerging technology towards 5.5G, 6G, and the next- generation WLAN standards.

This special issue seeks to bring together contributions from researchers and practitioners in the area of wireless communications and signal processing, with an emphasis on new approaches and techniques for ISAC designs. We solicit high-quality original research papers on topics including, but not limited to:

• Fundamental information theoretical limits for ISAC
• Network architectures and transmission protocols for ISAC
• Waveform/sequence/coding/modulation/beamforming design for ISAC
• MIMO, massive MIMO, and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) for ISAC
• Millimeter wave and THz ISAC
• Security and privacy issues in ISAC
• ISAC design in vehicular-to-everything (V2X) networks
• ISAC design in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks
• Machine learning/AI enhanced ISAC
• Radar and communication coexistence/spectrum sharing
• Passive sensing using communication waveforms
• Wi-Fi sensing for indoor positioning and target detection
• Radar-assisted low-probability-of-intercept (LPI) communications
• System-level simulation, prototyping, and field-tests for ISAC

Submission Guidelines

Prospective authors should submit their manuscripts following the IEEE JSAC guidelines. Authors should submit a PDF version of their complete manuscript to EDAS according to the following schedule:

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 August 2021 (Deadline Extended)
First Notification: 1 November 2021
Acceptance Notification: 1 January 2022
Final Manuscript Due: 15 January 2022
Publication Date: Second Quarter 2022

Guest Editors