Description
Integrated Sensing and Communication is the joint design of waveforms, hardware, and signal processing so that one transmission simultaneously serves both communication and sensing. ISAC is the broader research programme inside which 802-11bf-sensing is the WiFi-layer standard. From the thesis perspective ISAC matters because it is the long-term answer to "how do you do CSI sensing without parasitically piggy-backing on data traffic".
When it's used
- Cellular and Wi-Fi sensing-aware waveform design
- Joint resource allocation across sensing and comms
- Theoretical analyses of the sensing-vs-communication trade-off (CRB-rate region)
Limitations
- Standards still evolving; deployments are early
- Hardware support patchy outside flagship chipsets
- Joint optimisation is mathematically heavy