ISaCAGE will work on:
- Innovative and possibly cognitive algorithms for detection in crowded spectrum scenarios.
- Development of inverse scattering approaches for improved sensing and radar imaging in complex scenarios.
- Statistical modeling in crowded spectrum environments for improved sensing and tracking.
- Holistic architectures for simultaneously joint sensing and communications, possibly supported by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS).
- ISAC for advanced localization algorithms .
- Cooperative algorithms and joint optimization for ISAC.
ISaCAGE is part of Spoke 7 – Green and Smart Environments
Project PI: Marco Lops
Organization:
All of the milestones have been achieved. Over 20 journal papers have been published in the first 15 months on top of over 10 conference papers. Monthly meetings have been held throughout the first 18 months of the project, for both organization and scientific exchange purposes. In particular, each Workpackage (WP) leader has also called a "WP technical meeting", inviting all of the research unit, wherein each group participating to the WP has illustrated its scientific contribution: this has produced a number of technical exchanges between the different Research Units, with the aim of fostering inter-unit collaborations.
Dissemination work for the main results has also been taken care of a number of keynote speeches and/or plenaries have been held by members of the research units in international conference, and a special session – whose title reproduces that of the conference – has been organized for the IEEE 2023 IEEE International Workshop on Technologies for Defense Security (Rome, November 2023). One more special session will be organized for the 2024 IEEE International Workshop on Technologies for Defense Security (Naples, November 2024).
- WP leaders and Task leaders choice;
- Purchase committee choice (one member for each research unit)
- Organization of a special session named "ISaCAGE" at 2023 IEEE Int'l Workshop on Technologies for Defense and Security (Rome, November 2023).
- WP1 - All of the milestones have been achieved. More than ten scientific papers have been published.
- WP2 - All of the milestones have been achieved. Between 5 and 10 papers have been published (or accepted).
- WP3 - All of the milestones have been achieved. Three papers have been published or accepted.
- WP4 - All of the milestones have been achieved. Three papers have been published or accepted. Nine papers have been published or accepted.
All of the milestones have been achieved. Over 20 journal papers have been published in the first 15 months on top of over 10 conference papers. Monthly meetings have been held throughout the first 18 months of the project, for both organization and scientific exchange purposes. In particular, each Workpackage (WP) leader has also called a "WP technical meeting", inviting all of the research unit, wherein each group participating to the WP has illustrated its scientific contribution: this has produced a number of technical exchanges between the different Research Units, with the aim of fostering inter-unit collaborations.
Dissemination work for the main results has also been taken care of a number of keynote speeches and/or plenaries have been held by members of the research units in international conference, and a special session – whose title reproduces that of the conference – has been organized for the IEEE 2023 IEEE International Workshop on Technologies for Defense Security (Rome, November 2023). One more special session will be organized for the 2024 IEEE International Workshop on Technologies for Defense Security (Naples, November 2024).
1a) Communications-enabled sensing.
The activity focused on communications-enabled sensing where the signals emitted by an existing transmitter is exploited to sense the environment through one or more dedicated radar receivers. In particular, different strategies were conceived for OFDM-based non-cooperative/partially cooperative sensing with the aim to enhance the sensing performance in terms of target detection and its localization and to mitigate the interference through suitable transceiver design. Particular emphasis was dedicated to solutions based on low-cost sensors with low-complexity architectures and algorithms, limited requirements on synchronization, and compact hardware implementation. Experimental results based on Software Defined Radar (SDR) receivers have preliminary demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approaches when the receiver is installed on both stationary or moving platforms.
Societal and economic impact:
implementation of a dense network of low-cost sensors to be embedded in commercial communications systems for both indoor and outdoor applications.
1b) Compatible waveform design.
The activity focused on the experimental validation of probing signals designed to enable radar operation in spectrally crowded environments using an S-band Software Defined Radar (SDR). The tested waveforms ensure spectral coexistence between the sensing system and frequency-overlaid emitters, while optimizing radar performance. This is achieved through a bespoke notching of the radar signal spectrum to control the amount of interference injected by the radar in each shared frequency interval. The results demonstrated that exploiting the designed radar probing signals, the SDR system is capable of sharing spectrum with other RF wireless systems while also allowing to detect both stationary and moving targets.
Societal and economic impact:
realizing multiple services in the same bandwidth avoiding the allocation of new dedicated frequencies.
1c) Cooperative automotive RadCom devices.
A new cooperative networked sensing approach was proposed to use automotive RadCom devices onboard different vehicles as a single high-performance imaging Radar. The cooperation involves fine multistatic phase synchronization using targets of opportunity and high-resolution imaging by coherent processing. The research shows that cooperative networked sensing can successfully achieve high-end sensing capabilities while using low-cost mass-market sensors, thus increasing environmental awareness in the context of assisted and autonomous driving.
1e) Experimental results.
The concept of cooperative networked sensing was experimented by using real data acquired using a commercial automotive Radar installed on a moving vehicle. The experiment demonstrated the possibility to detect a faint target (pedestrian) in the close proximity of a strong one (a parked car) by the coherent fusion of data acquired from largely different positions.
2b) Smart sensor placement.
The activity focused on the optimal deployment of the receivers composing a multistatic target localization system. The goal is to boost the achievable target estimation accuracy (either in 2D or in 3D scenarios) ensured by localization techniques based on different kind of measurements (DOA, TOA, TSOA, RSS). The problem is formulated in terms of a constrained optimization problem where the objective function is constructed leveraging the appropriate CRLB for the position accuracy. Innovative optimization tools have been devised and the performance of the resulting algorithms have been analyzed on simulated data.
Societal and economic impact:
reduction in terms of transmit power to grant performance requirements (green solution).
Papers:
D. Tagliaferri et al., "Cooperative Coherent Multistatic Imaging and Phase Synchronization in Networked Sensing," in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, doi: 10.1109/JSAC.2024.3414609.
This paper proposes for the first time the use of multiple automotive RadCom devices on-board different vehicles to operate as a single high-performance imaging Radar, greatly enhancing detection of faint targets in urban scenarios.
A. Aubry, P. Babu, A. De Maio, G. Fatima, and N. Sahu, "A Robust Framework to Design Optimal Sensor Locations for TOA or RSS Source Localization Techniques," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 71, pp. 1293-1306, 2023.
The paper proposes an amazing framework, leveraging the block Majorization Minimization (MM) optimization tool, to design on the fly the best positions of the sensing nodes. The convergence of the techniques is theoretically proved and the performance is analyzed in comparison with state of the art solutions.
F. Colone, F. Filippini, M. Di Seglio, P. V. Brennan, R. Du and T. X. Han, "Reference-Free Amplitude-Based WiFi Passive Sensing," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 59, no. 5, pp. 6432-6451, Oct. 2023.
The parasitic exploitation of WiFi signals for passive sensing purposes is a topic that is attracting considerable interest in the scientific community. In an attempt at meeting the requirements for sensor compactness, easy deployment, and low cost, we proposed a non-coherent sensing strategy that relaxes the constraints on the sensor hardware implementation. Specifically, with the proposed strategy, the presence of a target is determined by detecting the amplitude modulation that it produces on the direct signal transmitted from a WiFi access point. The conceived approach is validated on both simulated and experimental data, collected in different operational scenarios.
The activity focused on communications-enabled sensing where the signals emitted by an existing transmitter is exploited to sense the environment through one or more dedicated radar receivers. In particular, different strategies were conceived for OFDM-based non-cooperative/partially cooperative sensing with the aim to enhance the sensing performance in terms of target detection and its localization and to mitigate the interference through suitable transceiver design. Particular emphasis was dedicated to solutions based on low-cost sensors with low-complexity architectures and algorithms, limited requirements on synchronization, and compact hardware implementation. Experimental results based on Software Defined Radar (SDR) receivers have preliminary demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approaches when the receiver is installed on both stationary or moving platforms.
Societal and economic impact:
implementation of a dense network of low-cost sensors to be embedded in commercial communications systems for both indoor and outdoor applications.
1b) Compatible waveform design.
The activity focused on the experimental validation of probing signals designed to enable radar operation in spectrally crowded environments using an S-band Software Defined Radar (SDR). The tested waveforms ensure spectral coexistence between the sensing system and frequency-overlaid emitters, while optimizing radar performance. This is achieved through a bespoke notching of the radar signal spectrum to control the amount of interference injected by the radar in each shared frequency interval. The results demonstrated that exploiting the designed radar probing signals, the SDR system is capable of sharing spectrum with other RF wireless systems while also allowing to detect both stationary and moving targets.
Societal and economic impact:
realizing multiple services in the same bandwidth avoiding the allocation of new dedicated frequencies.
1c) Cooperative automotive RadCom devices.
A new cooperative networked sensing approach was proposed to use automotive RadCom devices onboard different vehicles as a single high-performance imaging Radar. The cooperation involves fine multistatic phase synchronization using targets of opportunity and high-resolution imaging by coherent processing. The research shows that cooperative networked sensing can successfully achieve high-end sensing capabilities while using low-cost mass-market sensors, thus increasing environmental awareness in the context of assisted and autonomous driving.
1e) Experimental results.
The concept of cooperative networked sensing was experimented by using real data acquired using a commercial automotive Radar installed on a moving vehicle. The experiment demonstrated the possibility to detect a faint target (pedestrian) in the close proximity of a strong one (a parked car) by the coherent fusion of data acquired from largely different positions.
2b) Smart sensor placement.
The activity focused on the optimal deployment of the receivers composing a multistatic target localization system. The goal is to boost the achievable target estimation accuracy (either in 2D or in 3D scenarios) ensured by localization techniques based on different kind of measurements (DOA, TOA, TSOA, RSS). The problem is formulated in terms of a constrained optimization problem where the objective function is constructed leveraging the appropriate CRLB for the position accuracy. Innovative optimization tools have been devised and the performance of the resulting algorithms have been analyzed on simulated data.
Societal and economic impact:
reduction in terms of transmit power to grant performance requirements (green solution).
Papers:
D. Tagliaferri et al., "Cooperative Coherent Multistatic Imaging and Phase Synchronization in Networked Sensing," in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, doi: 10.1109/JSAC.2024.3414609.
This paper proposes for the first time the use of multiple automotive RadCom devices on-board different vehicles to operate as a single high-performance imaging Radar, greatly enhancing detection of faint targets in urban scenarios.
A. Aubry, P. Babu, A. De Maio, G. Fatima, and N. Sahu, "A Robust Framework to Design Optimal Sensor Locations for TOA or RSS Source Localization Techniques," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 71, pp. 1293-1306, 2023.
The paper proposes an amazing framework, leveraging the block Majorization Minimization (MM) optimization tool, to design on the fly the best positions of the sensing nodes. The convergence of the techniques is theoretically proved and the performance is analyzed in comparison with state of the art solutions.
F. Colone, F. Filippini, M. Di Seglio, P. V. Brennan, R. Du and T. X. Han, "Reference-Free Amplitude-Based WiFi Passive Sensing," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, vol. 59, no. 5, pp. 6432-6451, Oct. 2023.
The parasitic exploitation of WiFi signals for passive sensing purposes is a topic that is attracting considerable interest in the scientific community. In an attempt at meeting the requirements for sensor compactness, easy deployment, and low cost, we proposed a non-coherent sensing strategy that relaxes the constraints on the sensor hardware implementation. Specifically, with the proposed strategy, the presence of a target is determined by detecting the amplitude modulation that it produces on the direct signal transmitted from a WiFi access point. The conceived approach is validated on both simulated and experimental data, collected in different operational scenarios.
A number of companies have been involved in ISAC in recent years. To cite a few, Leonardo is deeply involved in radar-centric ISAC, while Huawei has been studying communication-centric sensing for a while.
- Coexistence between communication and sensing systems appears definitely feasibile, provided that suitable transceiver design - possibly exploiting environment information - is undertaken;
- Communication and Radar signals, already present in the environment, can be exploited to perform the dual function;
- Unfavorable channels can be tamed by using newly developed techniques, such as the RIS's, with no significant additional power consumption.
- Publications (journal+conferences) : Readiness >1;
- Talks (plenary/keynote)>1;
- Equipment: not yet applicable;
- demos: not yet applicable
Researchers involved: 250-300
Collaboration proposals
For any proposal of collaboration within the project please contact andrea.giorgetti at unibo.it
ISaCAGE News: