Integrated sensing and communication-assisted beam rendezvous in airborne networks

Abstract

This paper investigates the feasibility of the integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technology in the future airborne network (AN), a large heterogeneous network of various aircraft to realize situation awareness and sharing. In order to achieve better transmissions with few overheads, an effective beam rendezvous scheme is fundamental. However, due to the nodes’ oblivious movements in AN, the conventional beam training methods may lead to significant overheads and latencies. Motivated by this, we develop a novel fast beam prediction scheme for communication in AN with sensing assistance to improve the sum-rates while satisfying the sensing requirements simultaneously. This paper introduces our vision of the ISAC-enabled AN and provides the signal models in the considered AN based on ISAC technology. Then, we propose a 3D beam prediction scheme that helps both sides to formulate the aligned beams utilizing the angular prediction results, without the heavy beam training processes to reduce the overheads. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can achieve high-data-rate transmission while guaranteeing the sensing performance with lower complexity and link overheads.