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

Yuxuan Song, Yong Zeng, Yuhang Yang, Zixiang Ren, Gaoyuan Cheng, Xiaoli Xu, Jie Xu, Shi Jin, Rui Zhang

TL;DR

This paper surveys cellular-connected UAV ISAC, detailing how UAVs can serve as both sensing targets and aerial anchors to enable 3D air-ground sensing and communication. It integrates discussions on RCS, target identification, and tracking for UAV sensing, and outlines UAV classifications, CKM-based clutter mitigation, and ISAC platform design for cooperative networks. The networking perspective covers multi-static and multi-layer architectures, UAV swarms, and geometry-driven challenges like GDOP and synchronization, followed by coverage analysis using 3D beamforming and stochastic geometry. The work emphasizes the potential of 3D ISAC in low-altitude networks and identifies practical challenges—connectivity, computation offloading, clutter mitigation, and dynamic topology—that must be addressed for real-world deployment and scalable sensing-communication networks.

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 overview of cellular-connected UAV ISAC, by elaborating 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 network coverage issue and topics specific to UAV networking, emphasizing the new opportunities as well as unique challenges to be addressed.

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

TL;DR

This paper surveys cellular-connected UAV ISAC, detailing how UAVs can serve as both sensing targets and aerial anchors to enable 3D air-ground sensing and communication. It integrates discussions on RCS, target identification, and tracking for UAV sensing, and outlines UAV classifications, CKM-based clutter mitigation, and ISAC platform design for cooperative networks. The networking perspective covers multi-static and multi-layer architectures, UAV swarms, and geometry-driven challenges like GDOP and synchronization, followed by coverage analysis using 3D beamforming and stochastic geometry. The work emphasizes the potential of 3D ISAC in low-altitude networks and identifies practical challenges—connectivity, computation offloading, clutter mitigation, and dynamic topology—that must be addressed for real-world deployment and scalable sensing-communication networks.

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 overview of cellular-connected UAV ISAC, by elaborating 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 network coverage issue and topics specific to UAV networking, emphasizing the new opportunities as well as unique challenges to be addressed.
Paper Structure (19 sections, 6 figures)

This paper contains 19 sections, 6 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. UAVs as Sensing Targets
  3. RCS and Detection
  4. Identification Methods
  5. Joint Communication and Tracking
  6. Simulation Results
  7. UAVs as Aerial Anchors
  8. Classification for Cooperative UAVs
  9. UAV as an ISAC Platform
  10. Association with CKM
  11. Networking Perspective
  12. Multi-Static Sensing Architecture
  13. Multi-Layer Architecture
  14. UAV Swarm
  15. Geometry-Related Issue
  16. ...and 4 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: An illustration of cellular-connected UAV ISAC.
  • Figure 2: Tracking Scenario Visualization.
  • Figure 3: UAV tracking accuracy for different bandwidth and false alarm rate.
  • Figure 4: GDOP with different measurement errors.
  • Figure 5: Geometry of Bi-static sensing for UAV.
  • ...and 1 more figures