An Overview of Cellular ISAC for Low-Altitude UAV: New Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to play an important role in future wireless networks, either as aerial base stations (BSs) or aerial users connected to the cellular Network. In addition, integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has been identified as one of the six usage scenarios for the forthcoming sixth-generation (6G) mobile networks, aimed at improving network functionalities and realizing situational awareness of the physical world. While most existing research efforts focus on terrestrial two-dimensional (2D) communication and sensing, UAV as an aerial platform offers a new degree of freedom for designing three-dimensional (3D) air-ground (AG) ISAC networks. In this article, we provide an over-view of cellular-connected UAV ISAC by elaborating on the UAV's roles as a target to be sensed and as an aerial anchor to provide sensing functionality, respectively. In particular, we pay attention to the 3D ISAC coverage issue and topics specific to UAV networking, emphasizing the new opportunities as well as unique challenges to be addressed.