Toward Intelligent Roads: Uniting Sensing and Communication in Mobile Networks

As 6G development progresses, joint sensing and communication (JSC) is emerging as a transformative technology, promising enhanced spectrum and energy efficiency alongside innovative services. This paper delves into underexplored facets of JSC, particularly its role in vehicular technology and transportation systems. It discusses data fusion techniques that enable cooperative sensing in networked environments and underscores the critical role of resource management in balancing sensing and communication. It suggests modeling extended targets, such as vehicles, within a computationally feasible framework. Moreover, it proposes a novel integration of AI-based target recognition, allowing target-specific tracking parameters and target-based sensing resource allocation. Importantly, a case study is presented to underscore the real-world applicability of these concepts in vehicular scenarios, demonstrating how networked devices can achieve high sensing and communication performance.