arXiv subjects

Gayan Aruma Baduge

Publications and source records attributed to Gayan Aruma Baduge.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Cell-Free Integrated Sensing and Communication: Principles, Advances, and Future Directions

Cell-free (CF) integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) combines CF architecture with ISAC. CF employs distributed access points, eliminates cell boundaries, and enhances coverage, spectral efficiency, and reliability. ISAC unifies radar sensing and communication, enabling simultaneous data transmission and environmental sensing within shared spectral and hardware resources. CF-ISAC leverages these strengths to improve spectral and energy efficiency while enhancing sensing in wireless networks. As a promising candidate for next-generation wireless systems, CF-ISAC supports robust multi-user communication, distributed multi-static sensing, and seamless resource optimization. However, a comprehensive survey on CF-ISAC has been lacking. This paper fills that gap by first revisiting CF and ISAC principles, covering cooperative transmission, radar cross-section, target parameter estimation, ISAC integration levels, sensing metrics, and applications. It then explores CF-ISAC systems, emphasizing their unique features and the benefits of multi-static sensing. State-of-the-art developments are categorized into performance analysis, resource allocation, security, and user/target-centric designs, offering a thorough literature review and case studies. Finally, the paper identifies key challenges such as synchronization, multi-target detection, interference management, and fronthaul capacity and latency. Emerging trends, including next-generation antenna technologies, network-assisted systems, near-field CF-ISAC, integration with other technologies, and machine learning approaches, are highlighted to outline the future trajectory of CF-ISAC research.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2026

Set Transformer-Based Beamforming Design for Cell-Free Integrated Sensing and Communication

Existing cell-free integrated sensing and communication (CF-ISAC) beamforming algorithms predominantly rely on classical optimization techniques, which often entail high computational complexity and limited scalability. Meanwhile, recent learning-based approaches have difficulty capturing the global interactions and long-range dependencies among distributed access points (APs), communication users, and sensing targets. To address these limitations, we propose the first Set Transformer-based CF-ISAC beamforming framework (STCIB). By exploiting attention mechanisms, STCIB explicitly models global relationships among network entities, naturally handles unordered input sets, and preserves permutation invariance across APs, users, and targets. The proposed framework operates in an unsupervised manner, eliminating the need for labeled training data, and supports three design regimes: (i) sensing-centric, (ii) communication-centric, and (iii) joint ISAC optimization. We benchmark STCIB against a convolutional neural network (CNN) baseline and two state-of-the-art optimization algorithms: the convex-concave procedure algorithm (CCPA) and augmented Lagrangian manifold optimization (ALM-MO). Numerical results demonstrate that STCIB consistently outperforms the CNN, achieving substantially higher ISAC performance with only a negligible increase in runtime. For instance, in regime (iii), at $η$=0.4, STCIB improves the sensing and communication sum rates by 14.8 % and 31.6 %, respectively, relative to the CNN, while increasing runtime by only 0.26 %. Compared with CCPA and ALM-MO, STCIB offers significantly lower computational cost while maintaining modest performance gains. In regime (i), for a 3.0 bps/Hz communication threshold, the runtime of STCIB is only 0.1 % and 0.3 % of that required by CCPA and ALM-MO, respectively, while improving the sensing sum rate by 4.45 % and 5.9 %.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2026

Frequency Range 3 for ISAC in 6G: Potentials and Challenges

Spanning 7-24 GHz, frequency range 3 (FR3), is a key enabler for next-generation wireless networks by bridging the coverage of sub-6 GHz and the capacity of millimeter-wave bands. Its unique propagation characteristics, such as extended near-field regions and spatially nonstationary fading, enable new transmission strategies. This article explores the potential of FR3 for integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), which unifies wireless communication and environmental sensing. We show that FR3's bandwidth and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) capabilities enable high-resolution sensing, multi-target tracking, and fast data transmission. We emphasize the importance of ultra-massive MIMO with extremely large aperture arrays (ELAAs) and the need for unified near-field and far-field channel models to support efficient ISAC. Finally, we outline challenges and future research directions for ELAA-based ISAC in 6G FR3.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

A Tutorial on AI-Empowered Integrated Sensing and Communications

Integrating sensing and communication (ISAC) can help overcome the challenges of limited spectrum and expensive hardware, leading to improved energy and cost efficiency. While full cooperation between sensing and communication can result in significant performance gains, achieving optimal performance requires efficient designs of unified waveforms and beamformers for joint sensing and communication. Sophisticated statistical signal processing and multi-objective optimization techniques are necessary to balance the competing design requirements of joint sensing and communication tasks. As model-based approaches can be suboptimal or too complex, deep learning offers a powerful data-driven alternative, especially when optimal algorithms are unknown or impractical for real-time use. Unified waveform and beamformer design problems for ISAC fall into this category, where fundamental design trade-offs exist between sensing and communication performance metrics, and the underlying models may be inadequate or incomplete. This tutorial paper explores the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance efficiency or reduce complexity in ISAC designs. We emphasize the integration benefits through AI-driven ISAC designs, prioritizing the development of unified waveforms, constellations, and beamforming strategies for both sensing and communication. To illustrate the practical potential of AI-driven ISAC, we present three case studies on waveform, beamforming, and constellation design, demonstrating how unsupervised learning and neural network-based optimization can effectively balance performance, complexity, and implementation constraints.

cs.IT↗