Integrated Sensing and Communication for 6G: Motivations, Challenges, and Recent Contributions

17. July 2023
Speaker:  Marwa Chafii, New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi and NYU WIRELESS, NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Time:  Monday, July 17 at 11:00
Place:  Seminar room 389 (CG0118), Institute of Telecommunications, TU Wien, Gußhausstraße 25, 1040 Wien

Abstract: Integrating both sensing and communication in the same spectrum, using shared hardware and signal, is likely to be one of the key features of 6G wireless communication networks. A joint design of both services will have advantages in reducing the costs and improving the efficiency of spectrum usage, allowing communication to enable new radar functionalities and vice versa. Radar sensing may become another service in wireless RF systems provided by mobile network operators, just like communications today. In this talk, we will first present the concept, motivations and applications of integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), and then we will explain recent results about physical layer design for ISAC. In particular, we will show how beamforming as well as waveforms can be designed for dual-functional radar-communication (DFRC) systems. A new model named hybrid radar which fuses UL and DL signals will be presented and evaluated. Performance of a passive radar in the presence of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) will also be exposed. Finally, we will discuss open research challenges and future directions.

About the speaker: Marwa Chafii received her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 2016, and her Master’s degree in the field of advanced wireless communication systems (SAR) in 2013, both from CentraleSupélec, France. Between 2014 and 2016, she has been a visiting researcher at Poznan University of Technology (Poland), University of York (UK), Yokohama National University (Japan), and University of Oxford (UK). She joined the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, in 2018 as a research group leader, and ENSEA, France, in 2019 as an associate professor where she held a Chair of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence from CY Initiative. Since September 2021, she has been an associate professor at New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi, and NYU WIRELESS, NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Her research interests include advanced waveform design, integrated sensing and communication, and machine learning for wireless communications. She received the IEEE ComSoc Best Young Researcher Award for the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region (2022), the prize of the best Ph.D. in France in the fields of Signal, Image & Vision (2018), and she has been nominated in the top 10 Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications by N2Women (2020). She served as Associate Editor at IEEE Communications Letters (2019-2021), where she received the Exemplary Editor Award (2020). Between 2018 and 2021, she was the research lead of the Women in AI organization. She is currently Associate Editor at IEEE Transactions on Communications, serving as vice-chair of the IEEE ComSoc ETI on Machine Learning for Communications and leading the Education working group of the IEEE ComSoc ETI on Integrated Sensing and Communications. https://marwachafii.github.io/#/en/home/